


In Dreams

by Lyndsaybones



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-05 18:29:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 45,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10314305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyndsaybones/pseuds/Lyndsaybones
Summary: The lines between reality and dreams, truth and lies are blurred to the point that Mulder and Scully cannot distinguish one from another and how to right a world turned upside down for their professional and personal lives. The only thing they know is that life is short and the only thing they have is each other.





	1. Chapter 1

It’s oppressively dark, so dark that he can scarcely see her, or the rest of the team. The clouds hang so low that he swears he can’t make out anything in the distance between his head and his feet. One shouldn’t feel claustrophobic outdoors, but between the dense humidity and layers of riot gear, he is quickly losing his breath. But he can hear her, the sound of her leather tactical gloves creaking against her weapon, he can feel her shoulder bumping up against him.

“Stay behind me,” he whispers.

“No way,” she hisses.

Their ear pieces crackle and give the order. Flash bangs send the darkness into strobing bursts of white light the metal doors swing open. She’s already ahead of him, weapon raised. His heart is jackhammering in his chest. Flashlight beams bounce off of the walls. The room is wide and bare, nowhere to hide, and blessedly empty. He lets his arms drop and a deep breath tumbles into his lungs like water filling a bucket dunked into a well.

Voices from every corner call “clear!” The room is illuminated by the eerie yellow light of glow sticks. She’s a good twenty feet from him now, looking just a little disappointed that she didn’t get to zip tie a half dozen domestic terrorists. He offers a smile and shrug as he slings his weapon over his shoulder. She smirks back but then her expression suddenly shifts to something else. It takes him a moment to track and figure out what she’s looking at and with such dread.

The floor.

Why?

Hatches open all over, a half dozen of them,with guns cackling like a murder of crows. A trap. He watches the room flash, a lightning storm and sees her, in staccato slow motion, falling, and falling, and falling.

He is moving against a current to get to her. As quickly as it started, the gunfire stops.

There is gasping, choking, pained crying. At least four have fallen. All of the shooters seem to be neutralized.

“Scully?!” he says as he drops to his knees next to her.

She coughs and blood spatters around her mouth like a macabre Rorschach. His hands dance about, looking for a wound to tamp.

“Leg,” she gasps. “Too much.”

Her inner thigh is torn open and blood is pulsing out in waves.

“Hang on,” he says as he presses the heel of his hand against the wound. She winces behind bloodstained teeth. He knows that there is more, she wouldn’t be spitting blood   
if she didn’t have internal bleeding.

“Took one in the jacket, I think my lung’s collapsed,” she wheezes painfully.

“Help’s coming,” he tells her.

Her eyes go unfocused and she suddenly looks almost peaceful.

“Hey, Scully. Stay with me,” he says as presses harder against her thigh. His fingers are slickened with blood and the gaping injury is too big for him to cover. The femoral artery is either badly lacerated or entirely severed.

“I’m bleeding out,” she says softly.

“No, no, no, look at me, Scully,” he pleads. He begins fumbling with his belt and pulls it off in one swift move. He wraps the belt high on her thigh and pulls it as tight as it will go. She should have jolted or winced, something. But she didn’t.

She is staring, glassy-eyed at the ceiling and struggling to breathe shallowly.

“Scully?”

She doesn’t respond, just blinks languidly. The blood is still coming and coming and coming. He feels the panic rise up like bile in the back of his throat.

“I’m so thirsty,” she mumbles. And then, nothing. Her eyes slip shut and she stops fighting to breathe.

“Scully? Scully?! SCULLY?!”

He is still screaming her name when he rises from his pillow. He grasps wildly for her, trying to pull her back from the brink. She isn’t there.

He is soaked in sweat, his is windpipe raw as he tries to slow his breathing.

He snatches his phone off of the coffee table and dials blindly.

It rings and rings and rings.

“Hmmm, Sc’lly,” she answers, voice slurry and thick with sleep.

It’s as if she’s pulled a thread and unwound him with the simple greeting. His jaw immediately unclenches and the tightness in his shoulders releases. He closes his eyes and exhales deeply.

“Mulder? S’that you?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he says, trying to steady his voice.

“You okay?” she asks.

He scrubs his fingers through his hair and draws a breath in through his nose.

“Mulder?”

He can hear her shifting blankets about and sitting up.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” he tells her, remorseful that he has woken her.

“What’s going on?” she asks, her voice clearer, more awake.

“I’m sorry, Scully…I just…”

I just saw you die in front of me.

“Mulder,” she sighs, mild irritation creeping into her voice. “It’s late and we’ve got a flight to catch in the morning.”

“Yeah…yeah. I’m sorry. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Okay, g’night, Mulder,” she sighs, as cordial as a person can be at three in the morning. The line goes dead, no not dead, quiet. He heaves a great sigh and lays back down. He does not sleep.

DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

9:04 AM

They’ve been waiting on the tarmac for over an hour when the flight attendants start handing out conciliatory soda and snacks.

“Diet Coke,” Scully requests.

The flight attendant nods and begins filling a flimsy plastic cup with ice.

“Actually,” Scully interjects. “Could I just have the whole can, please?”

Tickled, Mulder smiles and elbows her lightly.

“What? Life’s too short not to get what you want,” she says.

“Ain’t that the truth,” the flight attendant quips with a smile and wink.

“Dana Scully,” Mulder begins with a playful tone. “Tell me, what will you do with your one wild and precious life? Uh, ask for a whole can of Diet Coke,” he says with a teasing falsetto.

She flashes him a disapproving look as she pops the tab.

“That’s your impression of me? It stinks,” she says as she takes a satisfied sip.

He shrugs and digs a bag of sunflower seeds out of his pocket.

“Besides, if I died tomorrow, I think I’d have very few regrets,”she adds.

He suddenly feels his heart pound and can see her faraway expression bathed in the yellow artificial light of a glow stick.

“Mulder? You okay?” Her hand is on his wrist, warm and firm.

“I had this dream last night that you…” he trails off, afraid to put words to what he saw.

“That I what?” she asks.

“You-”

“Attention ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain. We have been cleared for takeoff. Please buckle your seat belts. We’ll be in the air in just a few minutes.”

Whoops and applause fill the cabin and she smiles as she takes another long drink of her soda.

“What were we talking about?” she asks.

The strobe lights flash in his mind. He shakes his head.

“Nothing.”

TOPEKA, KS

4:15 PM

Scully surveys the open floor plan of the sprawling home. Upscale furnishings, marble countertops, bland, beige walls, not unlike the kind of home she might have ended up in if, if, if…

She shakes her head and returns her attention to Mulder and his interview subject: eight year-old Noelle Seel.

“Noelle, can you tell me about the man who talks to you?” he asks gently.

The little girl’s brown eyes light up and she begins to bounce as she talks.

“Yeah, he tells me when people are gonna go to heaven,” she says with a broad smile, gappy front teeth dominating her grin.

“How does he do that?”

“He tells me in my sleep,” she says. 

Noelle’s mother, a willowy woman in her early 30’s interjects.

“She was three the first time she told me. She said grandma Rosemary was going to die. I shrugged it off because we’d been talking a lot about death at the time.”

“Skippy died,” Noelle adds.

“Skippy?” Scully asks as she crosses her ankles. Her knee bumps up against Mulder’s.

“Our dog,” Mrs. Seel explains.

“And then grandma Rosemary died,” Noelle says simply.

“She had a stroke and passed a few days later,” Mrs. Seel says.

“How old was she?” Scully asks.

“92,” Mrs. Seel says.

She feels immediately annoyed. Predicting the death of a 92 year-old is no great feat and little more than a better than average guess. She gives Mulder a pointed glance telegraphing her distaste. He seems to receive the message but continues questioning.

He has his suspicions as to the veracity of little Noelle’s abilities, but the autopsy on her latest “prediction” should go a long way to either proving her a true psychic or sending her mother to prison. He hasn’t voiced this suspicion regarding Lydia Seel, or the fact that her now deceased employer left her a $250,000 life insurance policy. But the line of questioning has surely tipped off Scully.

“Okay, Noelle. Thank you for answering our questions,” he says as he stands.

Scully is handing Lydia Seel a business card and asking that they not leave town. Noelle tugs on his sleeve and beckons him to bend down so that she can tell him a secret. 

She cups her hand around her mouth and speaks softly.

“You can’t save her,” she whispers.

He jolts and looks into her wide brown eyes.

“Who? Who can’t I save?” he whispers back.

She points across the room to her mother and Scully as they shake hands.

“What does that mean, Noelle?”

The slight girl shakes her head sadly and says nothing more.

“Ready?” Scully asks as she joins him at the door. He glances between the two of them but cannot find words. He nods and roots his hand to the small of her back as they leave.

“What did Noelle say?” she asks as they move to the car.

“Huh?”

“When she was whispering to you, what did she say?”

He looks and sees blood on her teeth, eyes vacant and glassy. He blinks and it’s gone.

“It wasn’t important,” he tells her.


	2. Chapter 2

SHAWNEE COUNTY CORONER’S OFFICE

6:22 PM

In the battle between dinner and autopsies, the stiff always wins. Her dedication to the evidence has done little to help her gain back all of weight whittled away during her illness. It has been a long road back and when she looks in the mirror, she still struggles to reconcile what she sees. She’s still thin, yes, but strong and getting stronger. It is hard to square her story of survival with the betrayal she still feels, may always feel. She’s supposed to be grateful just to be alive and yet…

She draws her shoulder blades together and forces her sternum forward in an effort to work some of the soreness out of her back.

Mulder pokes his head in and glances quickly at the covered body of RJ Wilson.

“You done in here? I got dinner,” he says.

She pulls her surgical mask away from her face and tucks it under her chin.

“Yeah, just wrapping up. What’d you get?”

“Burgers,” he says with a smile.

The coroner’s lounge is just as bleak and sparse as one would expect. But there is a table for them to spread out at least. He pulls the top bun off of his dinner and removes his lettuce, dropping it in her container with her side salad. She peels off the two sliced tomatoes on hers and deposits them on his. With the vegetables wordlessly rearranged they both reconstruct their burgers and dive in.

“So? What killed Mr. Wilson?”

“Gotta wait for toxicology to come back,” she says as plucks a fry from his container. “But it looks like poisoning.”

“Well that confirms my suspicion, then. Let’s bring Lydia Seel in for questioning.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” she affirms as she pilfers another fry.

“Do you believe in prophetic dreams, Scully?” he asks, mouth half full.

Her first instinct is to laugh. Surely there will be a day when he stops asking her questions like that. She hopes it never comes.

“No, Mulder. I can’t say that I do. You?”

“I hope not,” he says somberly.

“What’s the matter?” she asks, seeing that he is clearly mulling something over.

“I had a dream last night,” he says quietly. “We were on tactical operation and it went wrong.”

“What happened?” she asks.

He swallows hard and stares at the table.

“You died.”

His behavior suddenly makes a lot of sense.

“That’s why you called this morning?” she asks.

He nods, drawing his eyes to hers.

“It was so real, Scully. It’s stuck with me all day.”

“What did Noelle say to you?”

His jaw tenses and shifts.

“She said I couldn’t save you,” he says quietly.

She watches him for a long moment, he seems to be battling internally.

“Well, let’s not volunteer for any tactical assignments, just to be safe,” she tells him reassuringly. She offers a small smile. He seems to pluck it out of the air like a fly ball and quirks a reciprocal grin.

SEEL RESIDENCE

7:15PM

He makes it to the front door before she does and knocks authoritatively. The door swings open under his fist into a dark, silent house. His gut clenches and he reaches for his weapon. Scully follows suit and they nod knowingly at one another.

“Mrs. Seel? It’s Agent Mulder,” he calls.

Scully is already whipping around the side of the house and heading for the back of the home.

He moves inside and begins working his way from one room to another. All are empty. Scully is at the back door and he holsters his weapon as he opens it for her.

“No one home,” he says with a shrug.

“Did you check if the car is still here?” she asks as she closes the door behind her.

He shakes his head and starts for the garage. As they get closer, the smell of exhaust hits them both. Scully springs ahead of him and swings the door open.

They’re both hit with a wave of carbon rich air and begin coughing. Scully slaps the garage door opener with the palm of her hand as he swings the door of the minivan open and kills the engine. Lydia Seel is unconscious in the driver’s seat and little Noelle is curled up in the back. Scully scoops her up and jogs into the open air of the driveway.  
Lifting Lydia is not quite so easy. It’s like trying to move a plastic bag full of water, all floppy limbs and dead weight trying to slide from his grasp. But he manages and gets her to the driveway.

“Noelle, sweetie? Open your eyes,” Scully says as she rocks the girl back and forth in her lap.

“She breathing?” he asks as he carefully deposits Lydia on the ground.

“Yeah,” she says as she keeps trying to rouse the girl.

He dials 911 and they wait for help to come.

MAGIC 8 INN

1:47 AM

She’d finally shambled into bed around midnight, although sleep is slow to find her. Lydia Seel is on life support, apparently having ingested half of her medicine cabinet before she loaded herself and her daughter into the minivan. Noelle, on the other hand, awoke in the ambulance and looks to make a full recovery.

Her arms felt like they did what they were built to do. She’d held the child and comforted her, just as she did with Emily. Her arms feel empty now, woefully without purpose. That’s not entirely true, she’s got purpose, lots of it. She has her work, she has her family and in whatever way he can be had, she has Mulder. It is a struggle, sometimes, to keep her focus on what she has, rather than what she doesn’t. Cases like this make it difficult.

She shifts under the blankets and tries to settle her restless head, which would be easier if Mulder weren’t making so much noise next door. His fitful sleeping habits are nothing new, but the noise is usually coming from the television instead of him.

When she hears her name shouted through the cardboard thin wall, she bolts upright and quickly extricates herself from the sheets. When they have an adjoining door, they leave it unlocked, which she is extremely grateful for at the moment. She finds him flailing and nearly screaming her name.

“Mulder,” she says, although she realizes it may not help to call his name if he’s dreaming that she’s in peril.

She reaches out and gently touches his shoulder as she edges onto the bed.

He sits up with a gasp, eyes wide and wild. She holds her hands up, trying to calm him. It seems to take him a minute to register her presence, but when he does, he wraps around her like a boa constrictor. He heaves great, deep breaths into her shoulder and she shushes him like a child.

“Shhhh, it’s okay,” she says as she strokes up and down his spine. “Everything’s okay.”

He sucks in a rattling breath and pulls away, quickly cupping her face in his palms. He seems to be searching her face, looking for something. She’s about to tell him that she’s alright, that nothing’s happened. But she can’t because his mouth is covering hers. Her first instinct is to pull away, to stop this before it goes too far. But it’s already gone too far. And she wants it to.

Life is short, her mind screams, get what you want.

She opens her mouth and he groans as his fingers move like gymnasts on a balance beam down, down, down her spine. His tongue slides in and his fingers splay against her back as he pulls her flush against his chest. She feels like she is melting into him, like a sliver of daylight couldn’t get between them. His mouth drags away from hers and begins laying sloppy, full kisses against her jaw, her neck, her collarbone. She whimpers, jesus, whimpers. His nimble fingers have left her back and are tugging at the fat buttons of her silk pajamas.

Oh god, oh god, oh god…

He slips them free, one by one and before she can open her eyes, his mouth is covering her right nipple. Her turn to groan. Teeth and lips and tongue worry against her taught skin and it feels so good that she can’t help but arch against him and beg for more.

He is slowly, slowly lowering her onto the bed, tugging at her pajama bottoms as he goes. His mouth unlatches from her nipple and he begins kissing his way down her belly.

“Scully,” he sighs.

“Oh god…”

“Scully…Scully…Scully,” insistent, louder.

She opens her eyes. His voice doesn’t sound right, pained? Scared?

“Scully! Scullaaaaay!” it’s coming from the next room.

She sits up in her bed in the pitch black room, chest heaving, alone. It takes a second to get her bearings, the desire drifting away like a handful of balloons. She stumbles up and forward to the adjoining door.

He’s stopped shouting and is sitting up in his bed, sucking in great long breaths and holding his head like a heavy stone.

“You okay?” she asks, hovering in the doorway.

“Yeah,” he says with a shaky sigh. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

She crosses her arms, suddenly feeling very exposed.

“Was it the same dream?” she asks.

“No, it was different,” he says softly. There is a long silence. His ragged breathing is the only sound, save for the steady thrum of the heater.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” she asks.

He looks up at her and even in the inky darkness, she can see the pain in his eyes.

“We were on a rooftop, twenty floors up, at least. And he just came out of nowhere.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know, but he picked you up and just threw you over the edge. I could hear you screaming and screaming and screaming.”

She is hesitant to narrow the distance between them, especially considering the dream she just had. She knows he’s otherwise occupied, but worries deep down that he’ll see it on her, in the flush of her cheeks, the dilation of her pupils.

“Are you going to be able to go back to sleep?” she asks tentatively.

He flops back on the bed and covers his face.

“Probably not,” he sighs. “But you should try to.”

She wants, more than anything, to cross the room and comfort him.

Life is short.

She leaves the door open, but goes back to her own bed. She does not sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

STORMONT VAIL HOSPITAL

10:02 AM

Noelle is sitting cross-legged on the hospital bed coloring a picture of Cupid in all his chubby diapered glory.

“Making a Valentine for someone?” Mulder asks as he sits on the edge of the bed.

“My daddy,” she says quietly.

“How’re you feeling?” he asks, watching her methodically fill in the cherub’s golden curls with a stubby yellow crayon.

“Okay,” she says.

Mulder leans in, trying to catch the girl’s eyes.

“Can I ask you a question, Noelle?” he says, “about what you said to me last night?”

Noelle looks up, eyes wide and fearful.

“I told you already,” she says.

“Who were you talking about? Your mom?”

“You have to let her go, that’s the only way,” she says solemnly. The light that danced in her eyes just yesterday has been snuffed out.

“Noelle, are you talking about Agent Scully?”

“Can I help you?” a deep voice asks from the doorway.

Mulder stands and finds the man from all the family pictures in the Seel living room. Ted Seel stands at least 6’ 5” with a soft body and balding head that speaks of years as a beleaguered office jockey.

“You must be Mr. Seel,” he says as he extends a hand. “I’m Agent Mulder with the FBI.”

Ted Seel shakes his hand, brow knitted with worry.

“Agent Mulder, this is an extremely difficult time for my family. I’m grateful for what you and your partner did last night, but I would really appreciate some privacy right now,” he says firmly.

Mulder glances back at the little girl, who has resumed coloring.

“Of course,” he replies. “Take care, Noelle,” he says softly.

She does not respond.

While waiting for Mulder to finish up with Noelle, Scully wanders the halls of the Peds unit. She’d actually considered pediatrics when she was in med school. Her fascination with the mysteries of pathology won her interest, however.

A thin cry drifts from one of the rooms and catches her ear. She follows the sound and finds a room with a lone occupant, a five or six month-old boy. She glances about for a nurse and flags one down.

“It sounds like his morphine is out,” she says, pointing at the beeping IV pump.

“Poor guy, his volunteer is out sick today, too,” the nurse says as she hangs an IV bag.

A cursory glance and she can see why he is here; a fresh gastric tube line has been placed and though her diagnostic skills are a little rusty, she can tell the boy has microcephaly.

“Volunteer?” Scully asks.

“Yeah, we have folks who come in and rock the babies while their parents are gone.”

“Oh,” she says, watching the nurse flit about. “I’m Agent Scully, by the way,” she says softly.

“Oh, you must be here for Noelle,” the nurse says as she attempts to shush the baby.

“My partner is with her…” she’s distracted, the sobbing baby with his wispy blond hair and round cheeks is just too, too much. “I could hold him,” she offers, “until his meds kick in.”

The nurse seems to hesitate.

“Unless you think his parents would object,” she back-pedals.

The nurse shakes her head.

“Tommy’s a ward of the state, he’s been here his whole little life,” she says sadly. She looks Scully over, as if she’s trying to assess her trustworthiness on sight. She shrugs. “It couldn’t hurt,” she says.

The nurse lifts the squalling boy from the crib and places him in Scully’s arms. He quiets almost immediately.

“Hi Tommy,” she says softly.

The boy blinks wide blue eyes, but they are unfocused, looking somewhere beyond the top of her head.

“He’s blind?” she asks.

“We think so, yeah. But his hearing is perfect, isn’t it buddy?” she asks. Tommy smacks his lips and sighs.

She finds herself rocking from side as she stares down at him. It’s the same way every mother sways. Except she’s not a mother, not really. She bites the inside of her lip. How something that feels so good can hurt so much…

Mulder leaves Noelle and her father and sets about finding Scully. The hallways are wide and doors to the rooms are heavy, preventing much sound from drifting, which is why the noise he does hear stands out. Quiet humming, off key, but soothing, is coming from one of the rooms.

He follows the sound and finds Scully. She is silhouetted in front of the wide window as she oscillates the little bundle in her arms.

He can’t breathe.

In another life, her trench coat would be a hospital robe and the baby in her arms would be her own. If he squints, he can make it out.

He realizes that this isn’t for him to see and certainly not his loss to mourn. And yet he does mourn it, because he knows she does. He quietly backs out and heads down the hall for a cup of coffee.

KANSAS CITY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

1:30 PM

“Delayed for another hour,” he sighs as he drops into chair next to her.

She nods as she takes the cup of coffee he offers. He spreads his legs so that their knees are touching and drapes his free arm over the back of her chair. He takes up so much space.

“You okay, Scully?” he asks softly.

She looks over and he is giving her the concerned puppy face, his hair flopping boyishly over his eyebrows.

“You saw me with that baby, didn’t you?” she asks.

She could feel his eyes on her as she rocked Tommy to sleep. Everywhere she goes, there he is.

“Yeah, I did,” he said.

“I found out a couple months after my abduction that I can’t have children,” she says.

She knows that he probably already knows, he seems to know everything.

Maybe not everything.

He doesn’t speak, just waits, concern etched across the lines in his forehead.

“After the cancer, after I started getting healthy again, my periods came back and I thought…I hoped…” she trails off.

She already feels like she’s said too much. The tears are stinging like salty sea air in her eyes.

“What does your doctor say?” he asks tentatively.

“Premature ovarian failure,” she heaves with a weary sigh.

Such a mean diagnosis. Couldn’t they have come up with a better word than “failure"? She’s never failed at anything in her life. Dr. Dana Katherine Scully: valedictorian, class president, Magna Cume Laude graduate, biological failure.

“What would it take?” he asks.

She knows that whatever “it” is, he would do it. It makes her chest hurt to think of the lengths he would go to for her.

“A miracle,” she huffs.

A invisible thread tugs a smile at the corner of his mouth.

“You believe in those,” he says.

She returns his smile with a sadder version.

“My mom used to listen to us say our prayers when we were kids. If we started asking for things, a pony, to live in Hawaii, whatever, she’d say ‘God isn’t a vending machine. You don’t put in prayers and get whatever you want.’”

“Is it what you want?” he asks.

“Kids? I just…I just always thought it was going to happen someday. And now that I know that it won’t…”

His phone trills in his pocket. Saved by the bell. She really doesn’t want to get into this, especially not in the middle of an airport. 

He answers and looks immediately exasperated.

“It’ll be well after five by the time we get back to the Hoover Building, sir…right…yes, sir.”

She flicks her eyebrow upward, a silent “what?”

“Skinner wants to see us as soon as we get in,” he says.

She nods and looks down at the coffee cup.

Mulder wants to say something, she can tell. He’s still angled toward her and she can hear his gears clicking away.

“You were a good mother to Emily,” he says.

It knocks the wind out of her, as swiftly and effectively as a jab to the diaphragm. A tear slips free.

J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING

7:27 PM

They are both dragging ass by the time they shuffle into Skinner’s office. He’d fallen asleep on the flight and startled awake from another nightmare. This time, he’d watched helplessly as a faceless madman slit her throat. He awoke gasping and grasping in equal measure. He has been glancing at her neck since they left the airport, relieved over and over to find it unmarred.

“Agent Scully,” Skinner says as he pinches the bridge of his nose. “A week from now, you are to report to the Chicago field office. I’ve tried to put a stop to it, but I’ve been overridden.”

“Sir? I don’t understand,” she asks as she shifts in her chair.

“It’s temporary,” he adds. “But they are urgently in need of a pathologist.”

“How temporary?” she asks.

“Three to six months,” he answers.

“I’m sorry, sir, but no. That won’t be happening,” she says firmly.

Atta girl, Mulder thinks, suppressing a smile.

“Agent Scully, unless there is a compelling reason for you stay, a personal or perhaps medical reason, then our hands are tied, I’m afraid.”

She nods and juts her chin out defiantly.

“I see,” she says. “Is that all, sir?”

“Yes, for now,” Skinner says as he stands.

She bids him good evening and is on her way out, skulking ahead of him, her chunky heels thumping on the carpet of Skinner’s outer office.

You have to let her go, the little voice echoes.

“This is bullshit,” Scully says firmly as she turns to him.

“I think you should go,” he tells her.

It’s the only way, tinkling like windchimes.

“What?”

She looks stricken, as if he’s slapped her.

“Our caseload is light right now,” he says with a shrug. “You might as well.”

He can see this isn’t fooling her.

“I might as well?” she echoes. “Are you kidding me?”

He sees bloodstained teeth.

“Mulder?”

Screaming, screaming, screaming.

“Mulder.” It’s not a question anymore.

Blood on a flashing blade.

“That’s it, you’ve got nothing else to say?”

Her face still and lifeless.

“You should go,” he murmurs.


	4. Chapter 4

J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING

WEDNESDAY, 8:15 AM

He tenses when she walks in. Actually, he went rigid the second the elevator dinged followed by the sound of her heels on the concrete floor.

The expectant look on her face, the dimpling in her chin, he knows she wants an explanation.

“Well?” she says as she sits down across from him.

He stands quickly, grabbing his jacket.

“I actually have an appointment. The expense reports from the Seel case are over there,” he says as he points to her little corner of the office.

“Mulder? What the hell are you-” he cuts her off by swinging the door shut behind him.

He heads up and out of the bowels of the building. He’s not lying, he does have an appointment, with a hypnotherapist to try and sort out the nightmares.

42 HEGAL PLACE

THURSDAY, 4:10 AM

He jolts from sleep as if a bucket of cold water has been thrown on him. He squeezes his eyes shut and can hear the brakes squealing, see her being tossed like a hapless marionette. The sickening thump as her body hit the asphalt sounded vaguely like his own heartbeat.

The therapist had been no help at all, trying convince him that the dreams were a manifestation of his own abandonment issues. He did offer some meditation techniques which he begrudgingly tried, but clearly they hadn’t helped. He only needed to avoid her for a little while longer and she’d be on a plane and far, far from him. Far away and safe.

J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING

THURSDAY, 4:14 PM

He can see the irritation rolling off of her like radiant heat on a desert highway. She is scratching her way through a mountain of paperwork, but he’s well aware of the fact that administrative activities are not what’s got her hackles up. He’s barely said anything to her, regardless of her repeated attempts to engage him.

“I’m gonna cut outta here,” he says as he stands, stretching the ache out of his back.

“Fine.”

It feels like a scalpel across his gut. Her surgical skill extends far outside the morgue. The precision by which she can cleanly separate his soul from his body with a single word is alarming. He shakes off the invisible ice crystals that have formed and leaves her.

J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING

FRIDAY, 11:21 AM

“We’re going to talk about this,” she says, eyes narrow, shooting daggers with every blink.

“What’s there to say, Scully?”

She’s blocking any possible escape, hands on her hips, jaw tense.

“What about the work, Mulder? You’re going to just slog through all of this on your own?”

He hates what he’s about to say, hates lying to her.

“I did just fine before you were assigned here, I’ll be able to manage for a few months,” he says cooly.

He can see it hitting her square in the chest. She seems to swallow it down like a dry pill and nods.

“I guess that’s it then,” she says as she steps away. “I’ve got some things to take care of before I leave Monday.”

He can hear the tears in her voice and wants nothing more than to wrap his arms around her and beg her forgiveness. But he doesn’t. He offers a half hearted farewell and watches her go.

GEORGETOWN, WASHINGTON, DC

SUNDAY, 10:15 PM

She’s awfully tired of people telling her what’s good for her. And she’s awfully tired of Mulder’s bullshit.

She’s only taking along a couple of suits. If she’s meant to spend every day slicing and dicing, she has little need for the tailored jackets and fuck me heels. There’ll be no one to appreciate the strong line of her calves or the added inches anyway. Not that the intended audience ever seemed to show much interest. Her bags are stuffed with boxy blue scrubs, thick white socks, sturdy tennis shoes, jeans and sweaters for the weekends. She’s packed up all of her favorite pajamas, so she’s currently sporting a t shirt and black leggings.

A soft knock on the door pulls her out of the task at hand. Through the peephole, Mulder’s distorted face looks even more mopey than usual.

“Mulder?” she sighs as she opens the door.

She’s got so little patience for him at the moment she feels like she could scream. Of course, she won’t scream. She’ll push her exasperation into the appropriate box and seal the lid tight. She’ll file it away and pull it out at a time when she can howl her lungs out. That day hasn’t come yet, but she’s looking forward to it. She has plenty to get primal about.

“Hey,” he says, still more sullen than she has tolerance for. “Can I come in?”

She offers a tight lipped smile and stands aside so he can enter.

“Come to see me off?” she asks.

He seems to be appraising her, taking in the the thinning US Navy t shirt and second skin of her leggings.

“I uh…I came to explain myself,” he says to her feet.

She crosses her arms, her self-defense mechanisms in full working order.

“Explain yourself? I don’t think there’s any need. You’ve been very clear. You’d like me to leave: message received.”

“I haven’t been entirely forthcoming,” he murmurs.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” she huffs. “My flight leaves in the morning, you’ll have six months without my second guessing. Enjoy it.”

“I’m not going to enjoy anything about this, I promise you. You’re not safe with me, Scully,” he says, still looking at the chipping pink polish on her toenails.

“I don’t understand,” she says.

“I’ve seen it, every night for ten nights solid. If you stay, you’re going to die.”

“Mulder? What on earth are you talking about?”

He toes at the floor, edging the corner of her area rug.

“I can’t lose you, Scully, I can’t,” he says mournfully.

“Is this…” she’s completely shocked and unsure of how to even respond.

“This is because of what Noelle said to you? Because of the nightmares?”

He doesn’t respond. She feels like something is bubbling up inside of her, roiling with indignation.

“So the cold shoulder was so I would go without a fight?” she asks.

“I’m sorry, Scully. I really am.” He finally looks at her and she can see the internal struggle.

“I’m stuck in Chicago because of a fraud and your overactive imagination?”

“She’s not a fraud, Scully.”

“No, her mother is. I can’t believe I let you…god, Mulder, this is ridiculous,” she nearly gasps, tipping her chin at the ceiling.

“Let me what?”

“Manipulate me like this! I didn’t even try to get out of it because of the way you were treating me!” she says, her voice climbing.

“I know you don’t believe any of it Scully, but if it keeps you safe, I don’t care if you believe it or not.”

“I am SO fucking tired of being a cog in someone else’s machinations. The conspiracy, the FBI…even you. You maneuver me and handle me and decide you know what’s best for me!”

His mouth bobs like one of his goldfish, as if hearing her swear had actually stolen his ability to speak.

“I-I’ve come too close to losing you too many times, I won’t risk it,” he finally stutters.

“I’m not yours to lose!” she shouts, tears threatening.

Maybe she’s more ready to unpack that box than she thought. Her face is hot and she knows her neck has gone splotchy, just like when she was a little girl.  
He sets his jaw and draws a breath in through his nose.

“You are mine,” he says, like a quiet breath.

She feels a rage crawling across her chest. The utter nerve of this man. She does want to scream, and break his nose with a sharp thrust of her palm and kick him in the ass on his way out the door.

“You are the most impossible person I’ve ever met! Who do you think you are? What gives you the right?” she shouts. “You need to leave.”

“I can’t,” he whispers.

He closes the distance between them in three short steps and she feels herself shrinking in his shadow. His hands are on her face and before she can summon the will to protest, his mouth is covering hers, his tongue sweeping against her bottom lip.

Her spine feels like it’s liquified. Her palms, splayed flat against his chest, tighten and grasp the soft fabric of his t shirt. Her jaw drops and lets him in.

Suddenly his hands, broad and strong, are everywhere, roaming her back, fingers fitting snugly between her ribs. One is working to the front of her shirt while the other travels down her spine. They each take a hand full of flesh at the same time and the circuit is completed, lighting a fire between her legs.

There’s nothing but the threadbare fabric of her t shirt between his hand and her nipple. He catches it in the webbing between his thumb and forefinger and it tightens instantaneously. Her knees go wobbly and she sags against him. He pulls away, just barely.

“I need you, Scully,” he husks as he squeezes her ass and breast in one coordinated move.

His words roll over her like a wave and she can barely suppress the moan the rumbles out of her.

“You don’t need me,” she sighs.

He kisses the pulse point under her jaw and her heart is fluttering like a hummingbird.

“I do, so much,” he whispers. His hand drifts away from her breast and his fingertips trip down her ribs like piano keys.

Plink, plink, plink…

She can hear the ghostly notes and see blooms of vibrant color in their wake.

“Show me,” she whispers.

He growls…growls and lifts her in one swift move. His breath is coming ragged, wild gasps. The journey from the living room to the bedroom is a blur as they are tugging at each other’s clothes like they’re on fire. He yanks her shirt over her head and whips it across the room. She suddenly feels terror welling up as she stands bare in front of him. She can’t stop shaking, trembling like a rabbit. Her hands drift up instinctively as she moves to cover herself. He stops her, fingertips glancing her wrists. He leans in and kisses her temple, her forehead, her cheek.

The top of her head feels like a glass of champagne, all light and bubbly. Her belly feels like a tumbler of whiskey, hot and dark. As his mouth finds hers again, she is drunk on him, dizzy and spinning as they tumble onto the bed.

Life is short, life is short, life is short.

She lays before him stripped bare, skin to skin and he is a moving so slowly, so carefully that she can barely stand it.

“Please…” she whispers.

He stops and looks at her tentatively. He nods solemnly and closes his eyes as he nudges and pushes in, in, in. She bites her lip and inhales sharply. She swears she can feel every ridge and vein of his throbbing, hot cock. He slides in a little further with each thrust until he is buried to the hilt. She’s already so swollen, so wet, so close.

She is clenching around him like a hot, heavy fist. She’s never looked so small as she does right now and he can’t take his eyes off of her. He’s afraid to move, terrified that he’ll hurt her. How can he not hurt her when it’s all he seems to do.

“Harder,” she says in a breathy whisper, and he’s off, thrusting in deep long plunges.

“Can you come like this?” he asks between gulping breaths.

Her only reply is a soft keening as she nods.Thank god, because he’s on the verge and cannot stop himself. She shudders and sighs and it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. A trapdoor opens underneath them and he is falling, falling, falling, white light flashing behind his eyes and the ambrosia smell of the two of them is all he can comprehend as he empties himself into her.

Hours later, the moonlight plays along her pale skin. He watches her sleep in the quiet dark of her bedroom, she is white, white as death. His heart clenches and he presses his palm against her bare back so he can feel her breathing. It’s the last thing he does before he gathers his things and leaves.

In the early hours of the morning, she is half sleeping and thinking she will cancel the flight. She will get her oncologist or therapist or someone to draft a letter as to why she should stay. She smiles and thinks of what they will do with this newly formed connection of theirs. As she opens her eyes, the smile drifts away, like a little boat coming untethered from the shore.

He’s gone.

This was a goodbye.

At the airport, laden with her carryon bag and various odds and ends she stops at a trashcan and drops her cell phone in with a heavy clang. She’ll request a new one when she reaches the Chicago office, one with a local number.


	5. Chapter 5

FBI FIELD OFFICE

CHICAGO, IL

The Chicago field office is newer than the Hoover, but at it’s most basic level, is still government building. The whole place is builder-grade, with cracked ceramic tiles and low pile carpet in the bullpens. The forensics dept is basically the same as any in a standard police department or CSI office. It is essentially glorified a teacher’s lounge with high tech lab equipment and five-year-old computers.

Thankfully, a morgue doesn’t require much flash. As long as she has her equipment, she’s happy.

Well, not happy, in the month and a half since her arrival, she’s been making a pretty good show of it though.

She’s able to work with a certain level of anonymity here. The field agents are focused on organized crime and gangs, not her spooky reputation, which seems to have blown away in the windy midwest. She can be whoever she wants here. Maybe she likes the corny jokes the guy in fingerprints regales her with everyday. Perhaps she’s the kind of person who joins the forensics department book club. She could be the kind of woman who wants a cashmere sweater because Oprah recommended it. Couldn’t she?

The fact that no one knows her is likely why there was so little fuss when her nose started bleeding. They don’t know what kind of omen it is.

“Oh, Dr. Scully,” a nerdy little woman from the administrative office says, gesturing at her nose.

She cupped her hand under the steady drip, drip, drip and bee-lined for the nearest restroom.

It looks exactly like the bathroom next to their…next to his…basement office, right down to the flickering fluorescent bulb overhead.

She focuses on breathing through her mouth and watches as the splotches hit the white basin in bigger blooms and shorter intervals. She has lived this moment too many times, watching her life literally circle the drain in a dingy little institutional bathroom. She suddenly wants very much to be home, surrounded by her own things and a phone call away from…the thought drifts away as she swallows back a wave of nausea.

When it finally stops, she calls Dr. Zuckerman and explains. He is very concerned, not exactly the calming reassurance she was hoping for. He refers her to a local oncologist for testing and has promised to send along her records, although it will be a week before they can see her. In the meantime, she sits quietly in her apartment, staring at the phone. Her heart is thudding in her ears. She wants to call him and tell him that he sent her away for nothing, that she’s going to die anyway. She wants to scream it at him. They could have been spending these precious days together and yet, here she is.

She turns to her computer and taps out a missive. “I think the cancer is back. I’m scared.”

Nothing more.

It’s far easier to hit send and let the words drift into the ether rather than speaking them aloud, especially to him.

6 WEEKS EARLIER

WASHINGTON, DC

He dials, muscle memory guiding his thumb over the buttons. Her flight landed more than hour ago, he knows because he called the airline to confirm it. It rings, and rings, and rings and rolls to voicemail. He crunches on a Tylenol and squints through the headache behind his eyes. Her professional, clipped voice instructs him to leave a message.

“Scully, it’s me. I…I just wanted to make sure you got in okay…I understand that you don’t want to talk to me…maybe just email me? Let me know you’re alright?”

He knows he deserves this, that the betrayal was real and she’s right to hate him.

He leaves some variation of the message every day for a week until he is greeted with a robotic voice informing him that the number is no longer in service.

After a month, he stops calling her office, a nasally secretary tells him that she’s been instructed not to give her his messages anymore.

On St. Patrick’s Day, he gets roaring drunk at a local bar. A lithe little creature with big brown eyes and bottle blonde hair asks if he is Irish.

“I’m not, but the love of my life is,” he slurs.

She doesn’t seem dissuaded as she toys with his loosened tie and offers to buy him another whiskey. He accepts. He draws the line when she invites him to join her in the back of her car. He stumbles home and calls Scully’s answering machine just so he can hear her voice.

On April Fool’s day he volunteers for a fool’s errand in rural North Dakota. It turns out pretty much all of North Dakota is rural. He ditches his suits and bad ties and opts for flannel shirts and jeans.

The open plains are claustrophobic in their own strange way. He could run all day and all night and still be surrounded by nothing. The SAIC asks if he could manage six weeks, help build a profile for the leader of the militia they’re surveilling. He agreed, there’d been an uptick of UFO sightings in the area lately anyway, anything to take his mind off of the relentless night terrors and deep ache of missing her.

COOK COUNTY GENERAL HOSPITAL

CHICAGO, IL

A garish purple bruise is blossoming inside her left elbow. The nurse struggled with her narrow veins. Admittedly, her dehydration had likely made things trickier. She’s been so anxious that she’s hardly been able to keep anything down. 

Mulder never replied to the email, another thing that makes her stomach clench.

“Dana?” the doctor says with a smile.

“Hi Dr. Benning,” she says softly, working her fingers over the edge of the gauze on her arm.

“I want to go over some results with you, okay?” she says as she sits down next to her.

“Of course.”

Her mouth has gone dry and her stomach is roiling.

“First of all, your MRI is totally clear.”

She lets out a breath that she didn’t even realize she was holding. A tear slips free and trickles down her cheek.

“Oh my God,” she gasps, covering her face. She’s been so prepared for bad news that she doesn’t know what to do with her sudden relief.

“I see no signs of cancer at all,” she says. “But, we did get one result that was…puzzling, based on your history.”

She sniffles and wipes her cheeks, her heart pounding anew.

“What?”

“Your blood tests show high levels of hCG,” she says with a little smile.

She furrows her brow and stammers for moment.

“I..I don’t understand.”

“Well, Dana, there’s only one way to produce hCG,” she says, chuckling.

“I know, but it’s not possible.”

“We’ll do an ultrasound to confirm, but based on these levels I’d say you’re six, maybe seven weeks pregnant.”

She gulps in a deep breath and tries feebly to hold back tears.

“It’s seven weeks,” she whispers.

GRAND FORKS, ND

The motel manager signals him with a wave of his finger.

“Agent Mulder? You have a package here,” he says as he holds up a rectangular FedEx box.

“Ah, thank you,” he says as he takes the dense box.

He’d left nearly everything in DC, save for the giant bottle of Tylenol he’d been eating his way through since early February. And even that was nearly gone.

He shreds the box when he reaches his room and plugs in the lap top. The room is sparsely furnished with typical chain hotel amenities, a desk, a television with plenty of porn, a queen sized bed with a scratchy comforter. He’d paid the required fee for in-room internet access and waited for the computer to whir to life.

When he sees her words, his mouth feels like it is full of sand. He packs the few belongings he did bring. If he leaves now, he will be there by mid morning. The message is more than a week old. If she didn’t hate him before, she surely does now.

He kicks up a dust cloud as he pulls out of the parking lot.

CHICAGO, IL

She stares at the ultrasound picture. If she hadn’t heard the heartbeat herself, she wouldn’t have believed it. But she did hear it, strong and steady. She feels as fragile and thin as the paper the grainy black and gray picture is printed on.

She’s gone from thinking her life was over to starting a new life altogether.

She glances at the phone and thinks through what she ought to say to him. She’s been trying to plan her next step for five days now and has made no progress.

The sound of light knocking on her hotel door snaps her out of her reverie.

“Who is it?” she asks as she hides the ultrasound photo inside her briefcase.

“It’s me, Scully.”

The blood drains from her face as she tries to stand. A head rush slows her movements, but she blinks the stars out of her vision and opens the door.

“Mulder, what’re you doing here?” she asks as she looks him up and down.

He steps in uninvited and wraps his arms around her. She suddenly finds it hard to remember why she’s angry with him.

“I came as soon as I saw your email,” he says into her hair. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Mulder, I’m not sick,” she says into the soft flannel of his shirt.

He pulls away and looks at her with utter relief.

“You’re not?”

“No, I’m not. But there is something I need to tell you,” she says, searching his tired face.

Across the room, her phone trills and distracts her for a moment. He looks at her expectantly.

“Don’t make me guess, Scully. What is it?”

It rings again and she feels oddly anxious.

“Do you need to get that?” he asks.

“No…no I…”

The ringing seems louder, more insistent. She blinks and when she opens her eyes again, she is in bed, folded into the heavy down comforter. Her phone is on the nightstand, pulling her out of the deep sea of sleep with it’s shrill tone.

“Scully,” she answers sleepily.

“Agent Scully, it’s AD Skinner.”

She immediately sits up, smoothing down her hair and clearing her throat as if he’d caught her snoozing on the job.

“What’s going on, sir?”

“Have you heard from Agent Mulder?”

The familiar bitter tang of adrenaline bites under her tongue.

“No sir, not for almost two months now.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

“Sir?”

“Agent Mulder took off from an assignment four days ago and hasn’t been seen since.”

She closes her eyes and the words land as surely and deadly as bullets. He’s missing.


	6. Chapter 6

I-94

RURAL MINNESOTA

The road disappears under his tires and he imagines that behind him, nothing exists anymore, as if the world is being devoured the second he passes.

The persistent throbbing in his head is only outpaced by the thrumming ache in his chest.

There is but one thing on his mind: her, her, always her.

He presses the gas a little harder as if he might be able to simply physically get ahead of the pain and let it sink into oblivion somewhere in the black void in his rearview mirror. The effort is in vain, of course, but at least he will get there that much faster.

He reaches blindly and manages to shake a couple Tylenol from the bottle with one hand. He throws them back like a shot of tequila and swallows them dry.

I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming…

Exhaustion hangs around the edges of everything like a fog. He’s been afraid to close his eyes, terrified of how he will watch her die this time. Sleep deprived, he’s driving with the windows down, depending on the frigid wind to help him stay alert. He blinks and sees her smiling. He blinks again and sees her laughing, an impish crinkle around her eyes. He blinks and suddenly feels weightless, like every bit of fear and anxiety is floating out the windows and freezing in the cold night air.

The roof of the car caves in with a garish crunch as the car rolls. He opens his eyes and realizes, much too late, that he must have fallen asleep. There is a cacophony of breaking glass and screaming metal all around him. The car barrel rolls again and again and comes to rest in a deep ditch. He wonders, as he dangles from his seat, if he will ever see her again. He can hear the wheels spinning and smell gasoline and antifreeze all around him. His head is swimming in a whirlpool of pain and confusion. He closes his eyes and sees her laughing, eyes bright and cheeks flushed. She looks so happy, like she’s lit from within. He smiles and lets the warmth of her wrap around him. 

She is the last thing on his mind as the nothingness catches up.

GRAND FORKS, ND

4 DAYS LATER

His hotel room is scattered with notes and surveillance pictures. She surveys the suite and thinks briefly that it must look a bit like the inside of his head.

She’d caught the first available flight after she hung up with Skinner. She threw up three times in air and hadn’t managed to eat anything yet. Her stomach feels like it’s caving in on itself. She wonders if it’s from anxiety or the pregnancy and decides that it’s probably some combination of the two.

She opens his laptop and taps in his password. Her email is the first thing on the screen when it blinks to life.

“I know where he was going!” she calls as she stands. She feels immediately light headed but tries to ignore it.

Skinner appears in the doorway, mouth in a tight line, eyebrows drawn closely together.

“Are you alright, Agent Scully?” he asks.

“I’m fine, sir,” she says, swaying gently and blinking the blackness away from edges of her vision. 

“Where was he going?” he asks, reaching out a cautious hand.

She waves him off.

“Chicago, he’s coming for me,” she says, barely above a whisper.

Her knees wobble and the stars dart across her field of vision. Skinner is saying…something, she can’t quite make it out. She doesn’t even realize she’s falling until he stops her decent. The darkness closes in and she lets go.

I-94

RURAL MINNESOTA

He is distantly aware that he is cold. His left arm and leg are pulsing with a deep ache. He experimentally flexes his fingers and winces as the pain spikes like a Geiger counter in Chernobyl. There is noise, the far away sounds of traffic, daylight filtering in through the shattered windows. He’s not sure when or how, but he must have unlatched the seatbelt because he is currently crumpled in a heap on the headliner of the car. The remnants of the windows are crushed into too narrow a space for him to crawl free. His arm and leg hurt too much to even attempt it anyway.

He’s supposed to be somewhere, he knows, but it’s all too hazy and full of static for him to remember. She’s waiting, he thinks, she’ll be worried.

He sees a flash of copper and a broad smile when he closes his eyes. He smiles back.

“I’m coming,” he garbles through swollen lips.

ALTRU HOSPITAL

GRAND FORKS, ND

The persistent beep, beep, beep of the heart monitor pulls her back to consciousness. She startles and sits up when she realizes where she is.

“Settle down, Agent Scully,” Skinner warns quietly. Her mind pinballs from one horror to another, all she wants is to find him.

“I gotta get outta here,” she mumbles as she pulls the sticky heart monitor leads from her chest. The machine lets out a steady tone, signaling the nurse’s station.

“Slow down, there, trigger,” a plump little nurse says as she jogs up to the gurney. “Your bp is still in the toilet.”

Skinner’s hand is on her shoulder, so large that she feels like she might disappear under it.

“Just relax,” he tells her.

“I’m fine,” she nearly hisses.

“Sweetie, you’re a lot of things, fine isn’t one of them. Care to guess what your blood sugar was when they rolled you in here?”

She does little to stifle her annoyance as she shakes her head and flicks her eyebrows in a silent challenge.

“31…you been on a hunger strike or something?” she asks as she re-sticks the leads on Scully’s chest.

“I skipped breakfast,” she says simply.

“Uh-huh and lunch and all fluids?” the nurse asks as she lays the bed flat and coaxes her into reclining again. “Well, we’re still waiting on your labs, so you can just cool your heels, sister.”

She bustles away as quickly as she appeared. Scully heaves a great sigh and stares at a water stained ceiling tile. Skinner is fidgeting about nearby, she can hear his trench coat swishing, smell his oaky cologne. It makes her stomach turn.

“I uh,” he starts nervously, “I saw–”

“You saw the email I sent Mulder,” she interrupts, “I’m not sick. I’m still in remission.”

“Then what’s going on with you?” he asks softly.

“I haven’t eaten yet today. That’s all,” her eyes darting everywhere but to him.

He is watching her so intently that she has no choice but to look at him.

“I get that it’s none of my business,” he says, reaching for her hand. “You just scared me.”

She gives him a reciprocal squeeze and quickly pulls away.

“We have to find him,” she says quietly.

“We will,” he assures her, awkwardly tucking his hands back in his pockets.

“Well this makes a whole lotta sense now,” an approaching doctor announces.

The embroidery on his white coat reads “Dr. Buck.” She’s not sure if it’s his first name or his last. Judging by his appearance, he looks more suited to ranch life, mending fences rather than bones. He’s wearing a plaid shirt with pearl buttons and a pair of fancifully stitched cowboy boots with his Wrangler jeans.

“I can step out,” Skinner offers.

She nods emphatically and watches his hasty retreat.

Dr. Buck raises the head of the bed and sits on a stool next to her.

“When’s the last time you were able to keep anything down?” he asks, threading his fingers together.

“Yesterday, last night.”

“Are you nauseous right now?”

“A bit, yes.”

He nods seriously. “Same way with my wife with all of ours. Just miserable stuff isn’t it?”

She’s half relieved to be able to admit that yes, she feels awful. She nods and closes her eyes.

“Alright, first things first. Let’s get some Zofran on board and then I want you to try to eat something. Have you ever had Zofran before?”

During the worst of her treatments, it had been a daily mainstay. She still has half a bottle at home in her medicine cabinet.

“Yes,” she answers quietly.

“Good. After you finish up that IV and get some food in ya, we’ll get your discharge going. Congratulations!” he says as he stands up.

She lets a little smile pull at the corner of her mouth. He’s the first to congratulate her, of course it would be a poor man’s Rooster Cogburn in a North Dakota ER. 

Two hours later, a belly full of terrible hospital food, she is tugging her jeans back on and pulling her oatmeal-colored sweater over her head. She jumps as Skinner bounds in like an over excited golden retriever.

“We got him,” he says with a breathless smile.

She closes her eyes and emits a full body sigh.

“Oh thank God. Is he alright?”

“Highway Patrol found his car flipped in a ditch in Minnesota. They’ve airlifted him to Minneapolis. I don’t know what his condition is yet.”

“We have to get there, now,” she says firmly as she sits on the edge of the bed and slips her shoes on.

“The plane is waiting,” he says as he helps her with her jacket.

I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming, she thinks.

NORTH MEMORIAL MEDICAL CENTER

MINNEAPOLIS, MN

His head feels like it is wrapped in cotton batting. Faraway, he can hear talking, machines beeping and whirring. He can feel hands, small and warm, fingers threading with his.

“Can you hear me?” a quiet voice asks.

He wants to answer, he really does. But his mouth feels so swollen, too swollen to form even a grunt, let alone a proper reply.

“You should get some rest,” a deeper voice says.

The little hands squeeze.

“I’m fine,” she says. “I wanna be here when he wakes up.”

Lucky guy, he thinks, dimly aware that he is “he” she’s referring to.

“He’s got head trauma, there’s no telling how long that will be,” the deeper voice tells her.

Who is this schmuck, he wonders, let her stay.

“Go sleep a while” the voice says, more like orders, “I’ll call you if he wakes up.”

A long silence, a little hand runs up and down his arm. Shuffling about and then butter soft lips on his cheek.

“I’ll be back,” she says against his skin.

God yes, please come back.

She lingers in the doorway a moment, watching Skinner sink into a chair next to the bed. Mulder looks like a B movie mummy with his head wrapped in gauze and his left extremities both in white casts. If it weren’t for all the swelling and macabre bruising on his face, it’d be almost comical. He looks terrible, but the prognosis is good. He was unconscious when they found him, but the medics reported that he kept mumbling the same thing over and over again: “I’m coming.”

She’s commandeered a room down the hall from him. Sunlight filtering in warms her face and brings her out of a deep and hazy sleep. It’s the most she’s slept since she found out about the baby.

“Scully?” Skinner’s voice calls. He comes in looking as disheveled as she feels. His tie and jacket are both gone and his shirt is untucked and unbuttoned at the collar.

“Hm,” she sighs as she blinks. They feel rough and itchy with sleep. She yawns softly and smoothes her mussed hair as she sits up.

“How is he?” she asks as she wipes the mascara remnants from under her eyes.

Skinner is skittish, looking askance as he approaches.

“He’s awake,” he says, his hands raised as if he might be able to halt her from getting off of the bed and darting down the corridor. Her heartbeat takes off like a starting gun has been fired.

“When? Why didn’t you come get me?”

“The doctors have been in with him until now,” he explains. “He doesn’t remember anything.”

She throws off the cotton blanket and hops down from the edge of the bed.

“Well that’s not unusual for head trauma. It’s not really important that he remember the accident,” she says as she straightens her sweater.

Skinner looks grim. He shakes his head and claps his heavy palms on her shoulders.

“It’s not just the accident, he doesn’t remember anything…at all.”

She feels a sudden wave of nausea and is overcome. She bolts into the bathroom and collapses into a trembling ball as she loses what little food she’s been able to keep down.


	7. Chapter 7

She spits the acidic taste from her mouth into the metal basin of the hospital sink. She catches a flash of her reflection in the mirror. She barely recognizes herself. Her pallor is somewhere between typing paper and fresh snow. She closes her eyes, so hard that it makes her head swim.

Skinner is hovering nearby, she can hear him outside the bathroom, toeing his stiff leather shoes against the linoleum floor. Some part of her mind acknowledges that she will have to come clean with him sooner or later. Later sounds better, but sooner sounds likely.

“Agent?” he asks softly.

“I’m okay now,” she croaks, her throat raw.

“What’s going on with you?” he asks.

She splashes water on her face and turns off the sink so she can go face him. He is standing stock still, looking her in the same pitiful way everyone did when she was sick.  
Her hands still feel tingly and heavy and the back of her neck is clammy.

“I’m pregnant,” she says to his sternum. She can’t look him in the eye and see the monumental disappointment. She knows he’s always carried a bit of a torch for her, although he does manage to keep his fervor in check. She’s always appreciated that about him.

“Is it his?” he asks.

She shouldn’t be shocked that he asked. The rumors that they are more than partners has been drifting like smoke around the Hoover building for years. Nonetheless, she is shocked. She looks him in the eye, tired but implacable.

“It’s none of your business,” she tells him.

She brushes past him and heads down the hall.

“Scully, wait,” he calls after her.

“I need to see him,” she says, still moving forward.

“He doesn’t know who you are,” Skinner reasons.

“I know who he is,” she says. She stops in front of his door and forgets to breathe for a moment.

She pushes a tear away from her eye and the air falls into her lungs in a gush. She knocks softly and waits.

“Come in,” a muffled voice answers.

She draws in another long, shaky breath and pushes the door open.

He is propped up in bed, his broken arm resting on a nest of pillows. She approaches slowly, worried she might startle him. He is watching her curiously as she rounds the edge of the bed and stands on his good side. The entire left side of his face is mottled in black and purple bruises and his eyes are nearly swollen shut.

“Are you Dana?” he asks.

She sits down next to the bed and reaches tentatively to take his hand. He flinches and she draws back. She squirms a little worries her hands together in her lap.

“Yes,” she answers. “I’m Dana. Do you recognize me?”

“They asked me if I remembered ‘Dana’. I figured that had to be you.”

“Do you remember me?”

He looks at her and tightens his jaw.

“No, I’m sorry. I don’t.”

Something cracks deep inside but she does not let it show. She swallows thickly, fighting the sting of bile at the back of her throat.

“It’s okay,” she whispers.

“They asked if I remembered you, but they didn’t tell me who you are,” he says. “Are you my wife?”

The crack widens and she feels like she might just split in two.

“No,” it comes out in a breath. “We work together.”

He looks deeply confused and then gives her a wry smile.

“You this close with all of your co-workers?” he asks with a little chuckle.

She wants to smile, to give herself a moment to enjoy…anything. But she can’t.

“No,” she says simply.

“Are you a profiler too?” he asks.

Her heart trips and stutters and her breath hitches sharply. So he hasn’t forgotten everything.

“No, I’m not a profiler. I’m a pathologist.”

“A medical doctor?” he asks.

She nods.

“Maybe you can tell me when I’ll get my memory back then.”

“I don’t know, Mulder. I wish I did.”

He smiles again and tilts his head to one side.

“You call me Mulder?”

“Yeah,” she says, stifling tears. “I do.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I feel like not remembering you might be the worst thing that could happen to me.”

“It kinda feels like the worst thing that could happen to me too,” she says, choking back a sob. He looks deeply remorseful, which makes things feel even worse. He reaches out and takes her hand and she wishes she could just go excavate all his memories and hand them to him. She wouldn’t even know where to begin looking.

They talk for a little over an hour, but he quickly loses steam and falls asleep. He is snoring softly, head tilted back against the incline of the bed. She is puzzling over their conversation. He remembers who he is, remembers that he is an FBI agent, but nothing about the X Files or her.

She gets up and stretches the ache out from between her shoulder blades. Skinner is in the hallway, looking significantly fresher than he did that morning.

“You should go back to the hotel, try to sleep a bit,” he says.

“None of this makes sense,” she sighs.

“What?”

“Don’t you find it odd that only thing he can’t remember is the X Files?”

“And you,” he adds.

That thought lands like an arrow in her chest.

“And me,” she echoes quietly.

“Odd how?”

“It’s just…it doesn’t add up. I just can’t put it together,” she says as she rubs her eyes.

“You’re exhausted,” Skinner says, gripping her upper arm. “You won’t do anyone any good if you’re dead on your feet.”

She knows he’s right. She reached a new level of lassitude, barely able to string together a coherent thought let alone suss out whatever is going on with Mulder. When Skinner offers to drive her, she relents, too tired to let her pride run the show.

She didn’t even realize that she’d closed her eyes until Skinner taps her shoulder and she comes awake in front of the hotel.

“I got you a room,” he says as he hands her a key card.

“Thank you,” she murmurs.

She drags herself into the room and flops onto the bed face first. She’s hit a strange state of delirium, too wiped to think straight and too wired to sleep. In these moments, she would typically just pop a sleeping pill and get unconscious. She nearly laments that it is no longer an option. She makes a mental note to research which medications are safe for her now, maybe speak to the hospital pharmacist when she goes back to pick up her Zofran prescription.

She’d wanted so badly to tell him about the baby. But she has to remind herself that the news would likely mean very little to the Fox Mulder in that hospital bed. She falls into a fitful sleep between the bleachy smelling hotel sheets.

NORTH MEMORIAL MEDICAL CENTER

A deep warmth surrounds him. He sees, somewhere in the distance, her walking with languid steps along the sandy edge of the earth where the water laps at her ankles. The sun makes her hair flash like a brand new penny. She turns and smiles and he feels like the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet.

“Mr. Mulder,” a soft voice calls.

He blinks and is back in the sterile white hospital with a nurse looking down at him.

“Hm, yeah,” he answers, bleary and confused.

“We’re going to take you upstairs for an MRI now,” she says.

“Oh, okay. Is my uh…the woman who was here, Dana? Is she…”

“I haven’t seen anyone here for awhile, sorry,” she says.

“Oh, okay then,” he mumbles.

He closes his eyes again and tries to remember…anything. He feels an instant familiarity, a comfortable ease when Dana is around. That feeling, he knows, is tied to memories that he desperately wants back. Because he hasn’t had that kind of feeling since before Samantha, of safety, of being wanted. When she was sitting next to the bed and he’d taken her hand, she held on like a it was a lifeline. No one, not even Diana, has ever looked at him the way she does.

He squeezes his eyes shut again and tries to think of his dream, of her walking on the beach. Is it a memory? Or something conjured up by his subconscious? He hates that he can’t tell the difference.

She feels seasick as she wanders the circuitous route to the hospital pharmacy. The tech from the day before greets her with a smile.

“Well hello there!” he says with an affable grin.

It’s just a little too early and she’s just a little too miserable for a dose of Minnesota Nice. But she feigns a half-hearted smile for his benefit and fishes for her credit card.

“Got your prescription right here, Mrs. Scully,” he says as he sets a white paper bag on the counter.

“It’s Ms. Scully, actually.”

He blanches sheepishly and apologizes profusely. At least she didn’t say “Agent Scully, MD.” He probably would have shit his pants.

She takes the bag and as she always does, checks the name and the prescription. She does a double take and holds the bag up to him.

“This isn’t mine, this is for…Theodore Seel?”

“Oh my goodness. I am so sorry,” he says as he takes the bag. “It’s been a little nutty here today, ya know?”

“That’s all well and good,” she says firmly. “But if I hadn’t thought to check, that could have been disastrous. That’s a very powerful sleep aid and I’m sure you’re aware of the possible side effects and the fact that it is certainly contraindicated for pregnant women.”

“Yes ma’am. Again, so sorry. Let me go get the right one for you.”

“What kind of side effects?” a deep voice asks from behind her.

She turns and finds the lumpy, balding man from the pictures in the Topeka, KS. She struggles a moment to find her voice again.

“Mr. Seel?” she asks.

“Yes,” he answers cautiously.

“I’m Agent Scully, I was working the case with your wife and daughter a couple months ago,” she says, offering a hand.

He tentatively reaches out to shake her hand, his meaty paw all but enveloping hers.

“What’re you doing here? Working another case?” he asks.

“Uh no, my partner was in an accident,” she says. “What are you doing in the Twin Cities if I may ask?”

“I’ve got family here, so Noelle and I are trying to make a fresh start. She’s upstairs with the child psychologist,” he says.

“How’s she doing?” she asks.

“Uh, well, okay. As good as can be expected for a little girl whose mother was dosing her with powerful psych meds.”

“Oh my God,” she says with a deep sigh. They’d suspected that Lydia Seel had been using her daughter, but they’d not really discovered to what extreme.

“Yeah, she’d been using pills along with some kind of hypnosis technique to make Noelle think that she was seeing and hearing all of these things with dead people. I dunno,” he sighs as he rubs his forehead. “The trial is still a few months out.”

“That would explain why you’ve had trouble sleeping,” she says, gesturing at this prescription bag on the counter.

“Yeah, you said there were side effects?”

“Well,” she starts, “yes. It’s what’s known as a hypnotic drug. It can be highly addictive and can actually deprive your brain of the deep REM sleep you really need if taken for too long. Some people even report…” she trails off, recognition hitting like a falling Acme anvil.

“Report what?” he asks.

“Memory loss,” her body stutters in an attempt to catch up with the jarring leap her mind has just made. She quickly turns to take her medicine and bolts toward the elevator. “Excuse me,” she mumbles as she dashes away.

In the elevator she swallows a pill dry feeling its long and painful journey all the way to her stomach. She exits at Mulder’s floor and makes a beeline for the desk.

“I need to see Agent Mulder’s blood work from when he was brought in,” she says to the nurse at the station.

“I’m sorry ma’am, that information is private,” she explains.

She rolls her eyes and pulls her badge. “I’m his partner, his medical proxy and his doctor. I need to see his initial lab work and I need it as soon as possible.”

“Yes ma’am,” she says disappearing behind a wall.

She leans up against the counter and tries to steady the roiling feeling in her head and gut. She closes her eyes and prays for the medicine to kick in and calm the nausea soon. There is a rustle of paper and a chart being pushed toward her. She opens her eyes and begins rifling through it all.

“Benzodiazpine?” she asks, pointing at the chart.

The nurse looks at the it and shrugs.

“These levels are awfully high for someone who’d been hanging in a car for the better part of four days,” Scully remarks. Not to mention that Mulder, no matter how bad his   
insomnia had been, had never taken sleeping pills.

“I wouldn’t know, ma’am. You’ll need to talk to the doctor.”

“And this? This compound. Any idea what this is?” she says pointing at the toxicology screen.

“I really don’t know, I’m sorry. “

She puzzles over the results and sighs. “I’m going to need a copy of this please,” she says as she pulls out her phone. The nurse nods and heads for the copy machine. Scullys punches at the rubber buttons of her phone and waits.

“Lone Gunmen,” a froggy voice answers.

“Frohike, it’s me. Turn off the recorder,” she instructs.

“Of course, m’lady,” he says.

She can hear clicking and crackling and his voice comes back.

“Long time no hear, Agent Scully. How can I help you?” he asks.

“I need to send you something for analysis,” she tells him as she heads for Mulder’s room.

“Animal, mineral or vegetable?”

“Chemical.”

“Sounds like fun. I eagerly await your message.”

She disconnects and stuffs the phone back in her pocket before pushing open the door to Mulder’s room.

He looks forlorn as he stares out the window, but perks up and offers a lopsided smile when he realizes it’s her.

“Dana, hi,” he says.

She can’t help but return the grin, regardless of the fact that he keeps calling her by her first name. 

“Hey, how’re you feeling?” she asks as she sits down.

“Like I got my eggs scrambled,” he says.

“Well you kind of did,” she tells him.

He nods pensively and purses his lips. He’s got his thinking face on. She thinks it almost unfair that she knows all of his “tells” and he knows none of hers. Were she to tell him she was fine, he’d certainly believe it.

“What’s on your mind?” she asks.

“Not enough,” he responds quickly. He looks like he is debating whether to tell her more. “I had a dream.”

She knows she’s visibly tensed up, because he does too. Based on his recent nocturnal imaginings, she’s not sure what he’s about to say or that she really wants to hear it. But the look he gives her calms her almost instantly. He takes her hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze.

“I saw you,” he starts. “On the beach. You were walking ahead of me and you looked so…peaceful.”

“Peaceful?”

He’d been staring off somewhere in the middle distance, as if he could see the image right in front of him, but returns his gaze to her.

“Yeah, you were smiling, laughing. Maybe I’d said something funny,” he offers.

“You probably did,” she says.

“Is it real?” he asks hopefully. “Did we do that?”

She wants to tell him that yes, they’d done that very thing, that they’d walked barefoot in the sand and laughed and it had been the most perfect day. But lying, even to make him feel better, won’t do any good. And it certainly won’t help him remember her.

“No, we didn’t,” she says.

He furrows his brow and seems to be deep in thought again.

“What are we, really, Dana?” he asks. “Because, I know we’re a hell of a lot more than co-workers.”

She bites the inside of her cheek and blinks a traitorous tear away from her eye. She nods, acknowledging that yes, they are a hell of a lot more.

“We’re…very complicated, Mulder,” she says, a soft sob catching at the end of her voice.


	8. Chapter 8

NORTH MEMORIAL HOSPITAL

TUESDAY

She sits across the conference table from the team of physicians who have been treating Mulder, fingers laced together. The three aging men look like a trio of bulldogs. She remembers sitting in much the same arrangement when she was trying to get into med school.

Peering over reading glasses with jowly faces they’d asked “ Why do you want to be a doctor?” “To help people,” she’d said.

It was the same answer she gave when she was first interviewed for the FBI. She just wanted to help people. But there was more to it than that, in both pursuits. There was a niggling voice in the back of her head reminding her to be ambitious without sounding ambitious. “Helping people” was the most benign answer she could give. Because the truth was that of course, she wanted to help, but she also wanted to be inspired. She wanted to feel challenged and scared and be the best with a capital “B.” She wanted to use the razors edge of her brilliant mind to do more than help, she wanted to slice through all of the minutia and patriarchal constructs and come out at the top of the game. It hadn’t happened that way, at all. The one thing she has come away with is the undeniable certainty that life is short and that she must go after what she wants with every ounce of resolve she has.

“Agent Scully, we’re at a bit of a loss as to Agent Mulder’s condition,” one of them says.

“I suspected as much,” she answers. “Has anyone been able to explain the compound discovered in his blood when he was found?”

“We just assumed it was some sort of illicit substance,” another one offers with a twitch of his bushy mustache.

She glances between the three men opposite her and her eyebrow lifts in an imperious arch.

“You just assumed that a federal officer was under the influence of an illicit substance?” she asks incredulously.

“It’s not outside the realm of possibility,” the third grunts.

“In this case it is,” she clips. “Why was no further analysis done?”

“His head injury is the most likely cause of the memory loss. When a doctor hears hoofbeats, he thinks horses, not zebras,” the grayest and most dour of the three says, looking at her as he would a petulant child.

“Yes, thank you. I didn’t get distracted the first day of med school, Dr. Kelley, nor any days after,” she says, leveling a look that could make any man tread lightly. “His MRI shows no evidence of a bleed or swelling. His ‘trauma’ amounts to a nasty concussion and certainly wouldn’t account for the degree of memory loss we’re seeing here.”

“My understanding is that you’re a pathologist, not a neurologist or psychiatrist, Agent Scully,” the one on the left chimes in.

“No, I’m not,” she admits.

“Because if you were, you would know that the causes for amnesia are many and that only a very few of them can be proven through any kind of imaging,” he tells her pointedly.

“Which is why I would like access to his original samples in order to do more investigation regarding this compound and the unusually high levels of benzodiazepine,” she says.

“Those samples were all tested and if anything was left, they’ve since been destroyed,” Lefty says.

“I see. Well, as soon as I can make arrangements, we’ll be transporting him back to DC.”

“I would strongly advise against that,” Mustache says.

“I wasn’t looking for your advice,” she says as she stands.

Her phone chirps as she moves down the hall.

“Scully,” she answers.

“M’lady!” Frohike greets with gusto.

“Frohike, what did you find?” she asks as she ducks into an alcove with vending machines and uncomfortable chairs.

“We had to reach out to a few friends to get a handle on this stuff. The best approximation we can make is that it is very similar to LSD,” he says.

“It’s an hallucinogen?” she asks.

“We think that was the purpose, yeah,” he says.

“Any idea what this stuff would do if it was introduced with another drug?” she asks.

“Like what?”

“Like benzodiazepine?” she asks.

“An induction of vivid hallucinations during the 2nd or 3rd stage of non-REM sleep? That could be pretty funky,” he says. She can almost hear his bushy eyebrows waggling.

“This was in Mulder’s blood, along with abnormally high levels of benzo,” she says, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“That might account for the dreams he was having,” Frohike says.

She blinks.”He told you about those?” she asks, suddenly feeling very exposed.

“Yeah, he did.”

She pushes the discomfort away and tries to regain focus.

“So if he was exposed to this for a span of over two months, he would have been robbed of any real REM sleep during that time, don’t you think?” she asks.

“It’s hard to say. And sleep scientists are split as to what effect REM sleep really has on the brain long term.”

“He can’t remember me, Frohike. He can’t remember the X Files. This has to be why,” she says balling her fist so tightly that her nails are digging into the flesh of her palm.

“Even if it is, how does he get his memory back?” he asks.

She feels like she is fumbling in the dark, trying to make connections with lines that are too short and too frayed to tie together.

“I don’t know,” she says softly.

Frohike is blessedly quiet, giving her a long moment to collect all the emotions that are welling up in her.

“We’re not going to give up on him,” he says.

“I know, me neither.”

He blinks once, twice and there she is. He could wake up this way everyday for the rest of his life and be absolutely blissful. He smiles, his face still feels puffy and getting his mouth to do what he wants takes some effort. But he sure as hell wants to smile for her.

“Hey,” she says, taking his hand.

“Hey,” he responds, mimicking her tone.

“I’m working on getting things coordinated so we can get you back to DC,” she says.

“If you think that’s what’s best,” he says.

She nods and squeezes his hand. “I do.”

“How soon?” he asks, taking in the view of his arm and leg both in traction.

“Hopefully by the end of the week,” she tells him.

He has no explanation for the implicit trust he feels in her, but if she told him that he was going to fly him to the moon, he’d let her.

She smiles weakly but a heavy blink seems to make her expressions lag a little.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Dana,” he starts tentatively. “But you look like you haven’t slept in days.”

She closes her eyes and nods.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but things have been a little wild lately.”

He chuckles. “So I’m told.”

“I’m okay, Mulder,” she says, her thumb working slow circles on the meaty spot between his thumb and index finger.

“Get some rest?” he requests. “Don’t lose any sleep over me.”

She drops her head and a silent laugh escapes.

“What’s funny?” he asks.

She looks up, a smile rising in her cheeks. “If only you knew how many hours of sleep I’ve lost over you in the last five years.”

“Bet you’d get a whole week’s worth of sleep back if you never met me,” he says.

She looks at him for a long moment, eyes wide and teary. “I wouldn’t want it.”

She stays by his bedside long after dark, but exhaustion is pulling her under. She’s never felt so tired before and after so little effort. He’s been in and out of consciousness, painkillers dragging him into incoherent babbling and fitful sleep.

Skinner comes in quietly with an evidence bag and a can of ginger ale. He hands her both and sits down next to her.

“Thanks,” she says as she takes the can and pops the tab.

“This was found in Agent Mulder’s car,” he says as he hands her the bag.

She looks at the bag and squints at the generic looking pill bottle inside.

“Tylenol?” she asks.

“That’s what it looks like.” he says. “Right up until you test it.”

“And?”

“Quantico says it’s the same combination you found in Mulder’s bloodwork.”

She looks at the bottle as if it is radioactive.

“Who would do this to him?” she asks, somewhat rhetorically. “And why?”

“I think we both know who would be capable.”

She nods and takes a sip of the ginger ale.

“How’re you feeling?” he asks quietly, glancing quickly at a sleeping Mulder.

She mulls over her response. It would be very easy to say that she’s fine, but if her amnesiac partner can tell that she’s tired, Skinner certainly can as well.

“Feeling miserable is a hallmark of the first trimester,” she says. “As uncomfortable as it is, it’s something I thought I’d never get to experience, so miserable, but grateful.”

“I would imagine so,” Skinner says, looking at his toes. “Have you told him yet?”

“No. I just want to get him back home, everything else can wait.”

NORTH MEMORIAL HOSPITAL

FRIDAY

After days of bureaucratic wrangling and coordination, she’s finally managed to get him discharged and arranged a flight to accommodate him. She is at the nurse’s station signing off on a mountain of paperwork when she feels a tug on her sleeve. She looks down and finds little Noelle Seel looking up at her with her big brown eyes.

“Hello Noelle. How are you?” she asks.

Her father is standing behind her, shifting his weight from foot to foot. The little girl smiles.

“I’m good,” she says. “Daddy said Mr. Mulder was in a accident. Is he okay?” she asks.

“He was, yes. He has some broken bones and he hit his head. But I’m taking him home today.”

Noelle nods seriously and knits her brow.

“He’ll be better soon,” she says, her little voice taking on a suddenly mature, reassuring tone. “He just needs his rest.”

Mr. Seel fidgets and begins to speak. “We were just here for an appointment and she wanted to stop and say hello.”

Scully nods. “I’m glad you did. I’m sure you’re right, Noelle, he’ll be much better once he’s had some rest.Take care, sweetie.”

Noelle smiles again and waves as she takes her father’s hand and leaves.

MINNEAPOLIS ST. PAUL INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

They’ve been on the tarmac longer than she would like, but Mulder seems to be hanging in there. They managed to score first class seats since it is the only way he can sprawl out with his casts.

His face looks considerably better, more blue and green than black and purple and the swelling is all but gone. His battered body caught the stares of every other passenger as they boarded. She’s nearly gotten used to how he looks in the last week and isn’t truly reminded of how beaten up he looks until she sees it reflected in the looks of the people passing by.

When they finally do get in the air, she is feeling awful. Regardless of pharmaceutical intervention, her gut feels like a little boat on a big angry sea.

“You okay?” he asks.

She can only muster a weak nod for fear of moving too much and making it worse. The flight attendant approaches with the rattling cart of beverages and she feels almost relieved.

“Anything to drink?” he asks.

“Chivas on the rocks,” Mulder jokes.

“Not with your painkillers,” she rebukes playfully. “Can I have a ginger ale, please?” she asks.

The attendant nods and hands her a flimsy little plastic cup full of ice and fizz. She takes it gratefully and draws a small sip.

“You aren’t gonna ask for the whole can?” Mulder asks with a sly little grin.

She nearly chokes and looks at him like he’s grown another head. He looks like he’s been caught in the headlights.

“Why did you ask that?” she questions.

“I just…I don’t…did I say something wrong?” he stammers.

“The last time we flew together you…” she would tell him the rest but her stomach is churning and she lurches out of her seat and bolts to the lavatory with no time to   
waste. After, she splashes cold water on her face and stares into the tiny mirror. He’d teased her about it last time, asking her what she would do with her one wild and precious life. She closes her eyes and draws a deep breath in through her nose. What will she do? Anything to get him back. Anything.


	9. Chapter 9

Sitting in the lush first class seat, everything feels unfamiliar, right down to the clothes on his back. Dana swore that they were his. The leather jacket across his lap is broken in and soft and the t-shirt feels like one he would choose. But they feel foreign nonetheless. The bag of sunflower seeds she tucked in his pocket feel like the only thing anchoring him to his seat. He digs them out with his good hand and shifts the cellophane bag around in his palm. He closes his eyes and meditates on her face. He knows she must be there somewhere in the vast library of his troubled mind, a cabinet labeled “Scully, Dana” that has every secret he needs to know.

She returns to her seat after a long time and he’s unsure what he should say. Her skin has gone from pale to translucent and he can make out a tremble in her hands.

“Dana?” he asks, oh so quietly.

She looks at him and offers a weak little smile. Her eyes are red rimmed and glassy and this feels like deja vous. He’s seen her like this, he knows it like he knows his own name and it fills him with an inchoate sense of unease. 

“I’m fine,” she says with a scratchy voice.

Something about that lights a fuse in his chest. Clearly she is not fine, but those words, in particular, make him instantly angry.

“No you’re not,” he says firmly.

She blinks and sniffles softly. He holds her gaze for several seconds, telegraphing his need for the truth.

“No, I’m not,” she admits. “But I will be.”

The words tumble about and he tries to make sense of them.

“Dana, I need you to be honest with me,” he says. “I’m fumbling in the dark here and you’re the only light I’ve got.”

Her chin dimples as she blinks away a tear and she nods almost imperceptibly.

“I’m going to help you find your way, Mulder. I am,” she says as she reaches out and cups his cheek.

“Rise and shine,” he says softly. “We’re landing soon.”

She blinks away the fog of oppressive weariness. He’s giving her that boyish, let’s-go-chase-lights-in-the-sky grin. She returns it with a little smirk of her own.

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” she half says, half yawns.

“Feeling better?” he asks.

She thinks on it a moment. She can honestly say that her stomach feels calm for the first time in over a week.

“Yeah, I am.”

“Good, maybe you just needed some rest.”

She nods in agreement.

“What about you? Do you need a percocet before we land?”

“I’m alright,” he says, giving his casts a each an experimental little wiggle.

“There’s no need to tough it out Mulder, really.”

“They make me loopy. I’d rather be close to a bed in that condition.”

“Have it your way,” she says, yawning again and stretching her arms over her head.

“Speaking of beds, yours or mine?” he asks, waggling his eyebrows.

“You’re awfully presumptuous, aren’t you?” she asks with mock indignation.

“C’mon Scully, you can’t leave me all alone like this,” he says, pouting.”Or do you think Maggie would object?”

Her heart feels like it has dropped into her stomach. Her pulse is thundering in her ears.

“Wh-what did you just say?”

“I said we’re landing soon,” he says.

She shakes in her head in confusion and grabs his shoulder.

“No, no. You called me ‘Scully.’ You know my mother’s name,” she says, pleading for him to remember more.

“C’mon, Dana…”

She jolts and he is pressing his good hand over hers, looking just this side of terrified. She feels like she’s just finished a 5k, her ears ringing and chest burning. It was a dream.

“There you are,” he says, reaching tentatively to brush her hair away from her face.

She swallows thickly and tries to acclimate herself.

“I didn’t think I was gonna be able to wake you. You crashed pretty hard.”

She feels woozy and confused. He looks so steady, so sure. How this man, who is so utterly lost is still able to comfort her, is a mystery. But mysteries are his wheelhouse.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she says, her voice more fragile than she intended. “Yeah,” she repeats, more firmly. “I’m okay.”

The little crease between his eyebrows is the clear signal of his doubt, but he nods affirmatively and lets his hand drop away from her.

“What were you dreaming?” he asks.

She looks at him and debates whether to tell him or not.

“I dreamt you remembered me,” she breathes out more than says.

After three days of hovering and fretting over him, he sent her home. He did so kindly enough, asking that she leave a hefty stack of files for him to sift through and that she please, pretty please, get some rest.

She shoulders open the front door of her apartment with a heavy sigh. The late afternoon sun makes everything look warm and orangey. She tries not to think too much about the inch of dust that must be covering everything or the fuzz bunnies that have likely animated under the furniture. If she ruminates on it too long she’ll start cleaning and won’t be able to stop until the whole place is sterile enough to build micro chips.

She deposits her bags on the couch, too tired to think about doing much else with them at the moment. She wanders to the bathroom and begins running the bath. As she sheds her clothes like leaves, she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She is somewhat shocked by what she sees. She’d noted, of course, that her bras had become a little snug as of late, that her pants are just this side of stifling, but with everything going on, she really hasn’t stopped to actually catalog the changes in her body. Her breasts are full and heavy and the once soft spot under her belly button is firm, like there is a little bubble underneath. A little smile is tugging like an invisible thread at the corner of her mouth. This is real.

Somewhere at the back of her mind, she remembers that she needs to call her doctor and her mother. She’s not sure which of them will be more surprised. She slides into the fragrant water and goes nearly boneless as she rests her head against the edge of the tub.

“So what do you remember?” Frohike asks as he takes a draw of whiskey.

“You guys, clearly,” he says with a shrug.

Langly blinks behind the owlish frames of his thick glasses.

“What about Scully?” he asks.

Mulder turns his attention to him, perched on the edge of his couch with his scraggly blond hair and threadbare Ramones t-shirt.

“Dana?” he asks. They all seem to pass a wary look at the mention of her first name, which he picks up on immediately. “Nothing distinct, just feelings I guess. I know I must have trusted her, that she was…is important to me.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Byers chimes in.

“Can I ask you guys something?” he inquires.

“Anything,” Frohike answers.

“What happened with me and Diana?” he asks.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Byers asks.

“We were dating, talking about moving in together,” he says with a shrug.

“She moved in alright,” Frohike scoffs.

“Well it obviously didn’t work out,” Mulder responds looking around his bachelor pad.

“No, it didn’t,” Byers concedes.

“You guys eloped and six months later she was splitsville,” Langly.

He feels his stomach drop somewhere near his knees.

“We got married?”

“Took another six months to get you functional again,” Frohike adds.

“And then Agent Scully came along,” Byers says.

He ping-pongs between the three of them, taking in the information with utter disbelief.

“Came along and what?” he asks.

“Made you a new man,” Frohike says simply, finishing the last of his glass.

“Is she my…I mean are we…”

He’s not sure what it is he’s asking. He assumes that he and Dana are close and likely more than partners. His attraction to her is undeniable, she is a beautiful woman. But there’s an image that flashes in his mind that tells him that the physical response he has is because of something that happened, rather than something he wishes for.  
When he closes his eyes, he can see her bare back bathed in moonlight and an intricate circle painted on her skin. It’s dark, so it’s difficult to make out, but he knows that he traced the delicate lines with the pad of his finger. He knows it is real.

“You’ve never been one to kiss and tell,” Frohike says.

“And all outward appearances suggest that your relationship is a professional one,” Byers says.

“But we wouldn’t be surprised if you two got horizontal once and awhile,” Langly quips.

Byers elbows him and coughs his disapproval.

“What? Like it’s never come up,” Langly says defensively.

“Agent Scully is a lady,” Frohike argues.

“One that you leer at like a dirty old man,” Langly counters.

He can feel the frustration rising and his head hurts.

“Alright, alright you three!” he bellows.

They all look at him wide eyed.

“Start from the beginning: me and Dana, everything you know.”

The three of them exchange concerned looks. Frohike takes off his porkpie hat and raises his empty glass.

“I’m gonna need another,” he says. “This is gonna take a while.”

She’d written her numbers down and stuck them on his fridge before she left, thinking it wouldn’t be more than a couple of hours before she heard from him. But now evening has turned to night and not a peep from Mulder.

Her mother sobbed with joy when she called and gave her the news. Amazingly enough, there were no questions regarding paternity, just if everything was alright so far and the due date.

Thinking on the events of last Christmas, it is astounding to think that there will a newborn in her arms before the next holiday season.

“God is watching over you, Dana. And so is Emily,” she’d said.

It was her turn to sob after that. She bid Maggie farewell and promised to visit in a few days. She knows she will need to tell him soon, regardless if his memory has returned or not. The way he looks at her, with unabashed adoration, she knows that he will be happy, that he will want to move forward together.

She managed to get her mountain of dirty clothes sorted and into the laundry. Cleaning the apartment would have to wait, however. It’s late and she’s just too, too tired.  
She shimmies into her silk pajamas and climbs into the fresh sheets on her bed. She’s been so long away from her home that she forgot what a comfort it can be to simply breathe in the scent of her own detergent. She picks up the phone and dials quickly, just wanting to hear his voice and make sure he’s alright before she gives in to exhaustion.

It rings twice and she feels tension starting to coil in her chest like a copper spring. Three times, five times, seven times and then to his answering machine.  
“Mulder? It’s Dana. Pick up…” she says. “Mulder, if you don’t pick up I’m going to assume you’ve fallen and you can’t get up.”

She hopes her mock playfulness covers the anxiety. The line comes to life and she can hear him breathing.

“Don’t come over here, Scully,” he says sharply and then the line goes dead.

The spring snaps, rending everything in it’s path to bloody shreds. Her breath catches and her stomach pitches and drops. A lone tear sojourns down her cheek. The phone slips from her hand and falls to the floor with a clatter. It is a long moment before she realizes that he called her “Scully.” 

He stares down at the phone and realizes that he was much too abrupt with her. Better to have not answered at all. But with all he’s discovered today, he’s not sure he can face her, face all that he’s responsible for. He sets it on the desk and looks up.

“You said you have an explanation for all of this,” he nearly spits. “Let’s hear it.”

“You’re sure she’s not coming?” his visitor says as she crosses her arms.

“She’s not coming, Diana,” he confirms. “So get on with it already.”


	10. Chapter 10

The last clear memory he has of Diana is dinner and a walk to the Lincoln memorial. The reflecting pool looked as black as her hair. He couldn’t stop staring at her. She’d laughed, a deep a contagious laugh that seemed to wrap around him like a blanket. Looking at her now, in the yellow light of his desk lamp, she looks like she hasn’t laughed in years. The quirky line of her mouth is etched with worry and her eyes look like she’s only met with sleep in passing.

“Where have you been Diana?” he asks.

“I took an assignment overseas, working for a kind of collective of international power players.”

“Doing what?”

“Gathering data, researching instances of alien encounters, trying to understand their plan.”

“Whose plan?”

“There are forces outside of our understanding, Fox, and they mean to destroy us. I’ve been trying to find a way to stop it.” She flicks a long lock of hair over her shoulder and pauses, staring down at her hands. “What’s happened to you, your memory loss, is an unfortunate side effect. From what I understand, the compound you were dosed with was meant to cause paranoia, erratic behavior. It was supposed to drive her away and to discredit you.”

“Drive Dana away? Why?”

“To take her again. To continue the testing they began three years ago. Her cure, her being alive, it was not sanctioned. But the fact that she is alive makes her very interesting to them, valuable. She’s the last of her test group.The men in this collective mean to see you destroyed and to use her however they see fit.”

“So why intervene now? What’s in it for you?”

“I’ve been trying for years to get back in the States, back to you. I want you to see that I’m here to help. That I’m on your side. I always have been.”

“And yet you’ve been working for the very people who abducted my partner, tried to kill her, left her barren and drugged me so they could take her again.”

“They’re very powerful men, Fox. I don’t often agree with their methods, but they’re trying to save us all.”

“So why now?”

“The chip she carries is the same one that thousands of test subjects carry. Last month, we began to see some very disturbing events. You might have seen the news regarding Ruskin Dam and Skyland Mountain?” she asks.

“I uh, yeah, they were burned.”

“That’s why I’m here,” she says softly.

HEGEL PLACE

2:10 AM

“Does he believe you?” he asks as he stubs out a cigarette in the sedan’s ashtray. She wrinkles her nose in distaste and crosses her arms.

“Yes,” she says softly.

“You’re doing the right thing,” he assures her.

“Since when do my feelings matter to you?” she says, tossing him an icy glare.

“Oh please, Diana. I’m not nearly as craven as you’d like to think.”

“What’s the point of all of this?” she sighs, exasperated.

“That child is a chance to fight back, Diana. A chance to stave off our own demise. But if Agent Scully ends up burnt to a crisp, she’ll be no good to us.”

“There must be another way,” she sighs. “If you think he’s a threat now, see what happens when you kill the woman he loves and take his child.”

“I said nothing of the sort.”

“Then what’s the plan?”

“In good time.” The flame from his lighter casts his craggy face in macabre relief. He tugs in a long drag of acrid smoke and starts the car. She looks up at the fourth floor window longingly as he pulls away from the curb.

GEORGETOWN

7:45 AM

The sound is traveling to her like it is moving through water, hollow and distant. Her whole body would hurt if it weren’t so numb. The only thing cutting through the thick and foamy dysphoria is the persistent cramp in her gut. Whether from the constant and uncontrollable vomiting, or something more critical, she cannot tell. The sound stops and she hears her own voice, clear and professional followed by a long beep.

 _It was the phone,_ her higher thinking brain reminds her. _Ah yes, someone is bound to find me eventually_. The sheer embarrassment of being discovered in a clammy, incoherent heap on her bathroom floor would bring her to tears if she had her wits about her. Her wits took leave somewhere around the 4 am hour, however. Now she’s just trying to remember how to breathe. She is very nearly crawling across the bathroom floor. The nausea, even with the Zofran, has been overwhelming. Since midnight, she’s been hit with dry heaves every 30 minutes. Her ribs ache and her head is spinning. She sprawls on the cool tile and presses her cheek against the hex pattern. She knows she’s dehydrated and her blood sugar is likely dangerously low. She knows she needs help, but she is so tired, so weak that she can barely muster enough energy to lift her head, let alone get to the phone. Her eyes are heavy, so very heavy. She feels so much better when she lets them fall shut.

The spinning stops, the pain stops, everything stops.

After three failed attempts, he is starting to feel nervous. After the way he spoke to her last night, he’s not surprised that she wouldn’t answer. Diana’s warning is enough to make him question why he really can’t get a hold of her though. He imagines her, moving zombie-like to some unknown location to meet an untimely death. And that thought, careening through his head like a pinball, is what prompts him to call for help. Skinner picks him up a half hour later and violates any number of traffic laws to get to Georgetown.

While everything looks vaguely familiar, he couldn’t say for certain which building is hers. He follows along as quickly as he can manage with his walking cast. Skinner is bounding up the stairs ahead of him and disappears into the building’s foyer.

“Agent Scully?” a voice calls.

 _Present_ , she thinks. An uneven, ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump, is drawing near.

“Agent Scully?” the voice calls again. She wonders briefly what she’s forgotten, Skinner only shouts like that when Mulder hasn’t completed his report or manages to be completely absent from a meeting.

Skinner moves a lot faster than he does, working his way through the living room and guest room. His walking cast doesn’t lend him much in the way of speed. It thumps on her honey hardwood floors like a death knell. He knows exactly where he’s going as he heads into her bedroom, which is dark and empty. The bed hasn’t been made, which he instinctively knows isn’t right. He’s about to turn and leave when he sees her foot in the bathroom doorway and stops with a shuddering gasp.

“Here!” he shouts. “She’s here! Call 911!”

Skinner lifts her from the floor. She has all of the stability of cooked spaghetti, nearly sliding out of his arms as he hooks his elbows under her knees and shoulders and gently deposits her on the bed. Mulder moves in as Skinner dials for help. The pattern of her floor tile is imprinted on her cheek and forehead like some kind of brand. He tries, in vain, to rouse her as Skinner speaks to the operator.

“Unconscious…breathing, yes…she’s pregnant,” Skinner says.

Mulder feels his heart stop cold and the blood drains from his face. Skinner looks at him, startled, an apology in his eyes. He looks back at Scully and presses his hand against her cheek.

Her arm is freezing. That is the first thing she can comprehend. She realizes that it is not just freezing, but throbbing, a sharp pain starting in the back of her hand and radiating up. That’s awfully familiar, she thinks. She reaches, trying to get to the source of the ache, to tamp it somehow. A warm hand followed by a warm voice hold her steady and she abandons her attempts. The next thing that comes to her is the smell. Medicinal, clinical, like bleach and the alcohol based hand-sanitizer and something else, sandalwood or something similar, something earthy. It smells good, but it also makes her stomach lurch. She drags her eyes open and immediately squeezes them shut again as her vision begins to ride a centrifuge.

“Dana?” a soft, feminine voice says. “Sweetheart?”

“Scully?” the warm voice says.

“Mmmmmm,” she moans softly. “I’m gonna be sick.”

Her mother’s hands are on her, holding her hair back and offering a plastic basin under her chin. The other hand, Mulder’s, rubs solicitously up and down her back as she wretches and coughs. Out of breath and energy, she flops back against thin mattress. She opens her eyes and it is all too much, too bright, too loud. Mulder and her mother hover in her field of vision, looking at her the way they did the last time she was confined to a hospital bed.

“Rest, Dana. Just rest,” her mother says as she strokes her cheek. She nods and closes her eyes again.

“It was never this bad for me,” Maggie says softly, clearly talking to someone other than her. “Poor thing.”

Mulder’s fingers lace with hers and he squeezes gently. He is trying to square the news with what the Gunmen told him. It shouldn’t be possible. But he’d sat right there as a technician worked an ultrasound probe over the white skin of her belly and magically produced the steady sound of a heartbeat and the grainy image on the screen. He saw arms, hands, feet, toes, even. He couldn’t breathe, but he could smile. Like an idiot, he grinned. He looked up at Mrs. Scully and she smiled back, tears in her eyes. Dana remained still and quiet.

“Hyperemesis gravidarum,” the doctor had explained, was the reason she was in this state. His latin is pretty rusty, but he can figure it out easily enough; she can’t keep anything down. She’s been robbed of fluids, nutrients and thanks to him, respite. It’s hard not to feel guilty when she’s laying there as white as the hospital sheets.

She opens her eyes and smiles weakly at him, squeezing his hand.

“We’ve gotta stop meeting like this,” he says quietly.

She nods a little and shivers.

“I’m freezing,” she whispers, her voice raspy and raw.

“It’s the IV,” he says, pointing with his chin. “They’re running it wide open to get you hydrated.”

He maneuvers carefully and gets up to get her another blanket, being careful not to bump her with his cast.

“How’re you feeling?” he asks, tucking it around her.

“Not great,” she whispers.

“They’re gonna try something different for the nausea,” he tells her, stroking the delicate skin of her hand.

He settles back into his chair and rests his chin on the edge of the bed near her elbow.

“I’m sorry about last night,” he says, “when you called.”

She nods a little.

“Are you okay?” she asks, her voice barely above a breath.

“Am I okay?” he responds with a chuckle. “Yes, I’m okay. It’s you I’m worried about. You and…” He trails off, unable to express the depth of what he’s feeling, especially with the bomb that Diana has dropped on him.

“We’re okay,” she says. “We’ll be okay.”

“Did I know–before? Did I let you leave knowing that…” he can’t find the words, can’t fathom that he would do that to her.

“You didn’t know,” she assures him.

“We have a lot to talk about,” he says, stroking up and down her arm.

“We do,” she concedes.

She blinks and it is in slow motion.

“After all you’ve been through,” he says softly. “Why do you stay? Your life would have been so much easier without me in it.”

A little smile dances at the edge of her mouth. “Easy sounds boring, Mulder.”

_“She won’t have any control over it. She’ll be compelled, under the control of the chip. You cannot let that happen. You cannot leave her side.”_

_“…I won’t.”_


	11. Chapter 11

The sound is what gets to him, the gagging, retching noise as she unloads her stomach contents, or what’s left of it anyway. He lays a cold washcloth over the back of her neck, and cups his palm over it. She reaches back and lays her cool, shaky hand over his.

“Thank you,” she rasps, her voice ruined by the repeated rounds of sickness.

He settles onto the floor behind her and wraps an arm around her waist.

“It’s gonna get better,” he says softly against her shoulder.

“You don’t know that,” she whispers, pressing her forehead against the edge of the toilet seat.

“You can’t let this thing beat you, Scully,” he tells her.

There is a long silence, the only sound is the running toilet and her rattling breath. In and out, in and out. He looks at the black and white tiles of her floor and notes how they look like an art deco honeycomb.

“I don’t have any control,” she whispers. “I think that’s what I hate the most.”

“It’s gonna be okay,” he assures her, rubbing the flat of his palm up and down her back. He can feel every protruding vertebrae, every hill and valley of her ribs, feel her lungs expanding and contracting, her pulse thudding against her spine.

“It’s not,” she says softly. “The tumor isn’t responding to any of the treatment. This is going to kill me. You need to be ready, Mulder. You need to be able to let me go on without you.”

He feels tears stinging in his eyes as he presses his forehead into her shoulder.

“Please,” he implores. “Please don’t give up.”

He wakes, with a start, in the quiet dark of her apartment. Her couch is not as comfortable as his, but it’s done the trick for the last week or so. He blinks and tries to acclimate himself when he catches sight of her by the door. She is shrugging into a jacket and patting about for her keys.

“Dana? You okay?” he asks.

“I gotta go,” she says softly.

He looks at the clock on the VCR and back to her, still clad in silk pajamas.

“It’s 2:30 in the morning, go where?”

She looks through him, eyes unfocused and distant.

“I gotta go,” she repeats.

His pulse starts pounding in his ears and he hastily and rather ungracefully extricates himself from the tangle of blankets and ka-thunks to the door, blocking her exit.

“Where do you need to go?” he asks again.

She looks at his chest, brow furrowed, mouth bobbing for a moment.

“I’ll know when I get there,” she says.

He shakes his head and plants his good hand on her shoulder.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he says. “It’s the middle of the night and neither one of us is in any shape to get out right now.”

She finally looks up, confusion, agitation, maybe even fear are all written across her face.

“Move,” she says, placing her hands on his chest. “I have to go.”

“She won’t be able to stop herself. And you won’t be able to reason with her.”

He takes a deep breath and gently tries to move her away from the door.

“C’mon,” he says. “Let’s go lay back down.”

She resists and reaches around him, pawing for the doorknob. He wraps his forearm around her from behind, lifting her in one clean swoop.

“Stop!” she shouts. “I have to go! They’re waiting!”

He says nothing as he hauls her back to the bedroom. She struggles and flails, but even if she were feeling her best, she’s no match for him. He is starting to break a bit of a sweat as he falls back onto her bed, bringing her down with him as gently as he is able. She is clawing at his arm and very nearly growling as she twists and kicks. His forearm stings and he is certain she has drawn blood, but he holds fast, willing to bear any wound to keep her from walking out the door. Her elbow catches him between the ribs and it knocks the wind out of him. The tug of war between him and the force drawing her goes on for what seems like hours before she seems to give up, or pass out, he’s not sure which. He feels her go limpid against him, breathing only the way a sleeping person can, and he finally, finally releases his hold on her.

She wakes, sometime shortly before sunrise. Every muscle in her body aches and her head feels like it is in a vise. It feels like someone has cranked up the heat because she is very nearly sweating, the humidity reminding her of the butterfly room at her favorite arboretum. As she slowly gets her bearings, she realizes that the heat is mostly at her back and at her back is Mulder, heavy and limp, hanging onto a fistful of her pajama shirt and snoring softly. She moves, trying to get free of his grip without waking him, but the soreness is accompanied by stiffness, so subtle movements are difficult. He startles and suddenly has his arm around her middle, hanging onto her like a life preserver.

“Mulder, what on earth?” she asks, startled herself.

“Dana?” he asks.

“Who else?” she nearly shouts.

He sits up and hovers over her, looking at her like he’s never seen her before.

“You tried to leave last night,” he says.

“What are you talking about?”

“You got up and tried to walk out the front door,” he says.

“Oh for heaven sakes, Mulder!” she complains as she pulls out of his grasp and stands, perhaps too quickly, because stars dance across her vision for a moment.

Her field of view settles and she is ready to tear into how ridiculous his statement is, right up until she catches sight of the wounds on his forearm.

“What happened?” she asks, sitting back down on the bed.

He pushes himself up into a sitting position and examines the series of scratches crusted with dried blood.

“It’s nothing,” he says.

She reaches out, her fingertips grazing the wounds ever so lightly. It is then that she notices the flaky bits of rust under her nails.

“Oh my god,” she gasps. “I did that?”

“You don’t remember anything?” he asks.

She closes her eyes a moment, searching her mental inventory for a moment when she clawed the hell out of Mulder’s arm. But it is not there, nor is any attempt to leave the apartment. Her last clear memory is wishing Mulder a goodnight before shuffling off to bed herself. She opens her eyes and sees the concern in his eyes. She shakes her head. Whatever happened, it’s not there.

He realizes that he must come clean, explain all of it or he has no real way to keep her safe. He dumps it all out at her feet, like excavating a grave.

She watches him, brows knitting and twitching. He finds it remarkable how much she expresses with just a few millimeters of movement.

“And you trust this woman…Diana?” she asks.

“Trust is a strong word,” he says.

“I see,” she says.

Her hand drifts over the back of her neck and drops back down again. He watches her get up and dart into the hallway. He struggles to get upright so he can follow after. The sooner he can get the damn casts off, the better. She is in the living room shuffling case files and newspapers on the coffee table.

“I really wish you would make a little more effort to tidy up,” she grumbles as she stacks and straightens.

He watches tentatively from the edge of the room “If she’s telling the truth, there should have been another mass immolation last night, right?” she asks as she digs the remote out of his pile of detritus.

His gut churns at that notion, but he nods in assent and watches her turn on the TV and flip through the channels until she settles on CNN. They both watch silently as a rotund man shouts enthusiastically about the weather and then a story about a family with quintuplets plays. He passes her a furtive glance at that one. She does not seem to notice, staring straight ahead.

“Sad news to report this morning at Prince William Forest Park,” a stone faced reporter says.

The remote clatters to the floor and he watches as she drops onto the couch, hands over her mouth. He moves as quickly as he is able and sits down next to her. On the screen, images of emergency vehicles flash interspersed with a blackened circle of earth and yellow tarps scattered about.

“Totals are unknown, but there are believed to be more than 40 people dead here.”

Her head drops and she sucks in a long, rattling breath. He stops paying attention to the reporter and lasers in on her, just her. 

He wants to tell her his dream, that he thinks it wasn’t a dream, but a memory. He wants to tell her that he thinks he remembers falling in love with her. He reaches out and presses his hand against her back, feeling the words rising out of his chest like a spring. Before he can say what’s on his mind, she shrugs his hand away and jogs to the bathroom. He begins to follow but is halted by the sound of his phone chirping on the coffee table.

“Mulder,” he answers.

“Fox, it’s Diana,” she says.

He looks around the room, worried that Scully may overhear. The sound of the shower coming on calms his racing heart just a little.

“Is she alright?” Diana asks.

“She’s alright,” he confirms.

“Do you believe me?” she asks.

“I do.”

“Good, because we have something else to talk about. Can you meet me?”

“When?”

“I’m outside her apartment, come down.”


	12. Chapter 12

GEORGETOWN

WASHINGTON, DC

She’s found that there are few things as cleansing as a scalding shower. After her abduction, the hospital smell clung to her skin like soap scum and she sat crumpled in the corner of her shower for the better part of an hour, scrubbing until her skin was red and oversensitive. If she couldn’t shed her skin, she’d take it off herself. She exited smelling of freesia and feeling a little less like a stranger in her own body. When Donnie Pfaster got his hands on her, she tossed her clothes in the building’s incinerator upon arriving home and stayed in the shower until the answering machine recorded Mulder’s impassioned pleas for a call back.

Baptism, as she was taught, was the act of washing away Original Sin. Babies, perfect little beings, born with a sin that wasn’t of their own doing, seems just this side of ludicrous to her. While she still struggles to accept the notion that an infant has sin on its soul, she does believe other people’s sin can stick like a bacteria, infecting and infesting. The act of sacramental baptism is a nice ritual, even if a hollow one. But her particular form of baptism, washing away the misdeeds of the evil men around her, is absolutely essential.

She’s not sure how long she’s been under the pelting heat, time gets as slippery as a bar of soap when trauma is involved. Mulder hasn’t come looking for her, blessedly. She swallows thickly, pushing down the acid crawling up the back of her throat. Back down the waterspout you go, she thinks to herself. She is sitting, arms resting atop her knees, leaning up against the white tiles of her shower stall. The heat licks like a flame across her chest, turning her skin pink. When she does decide to stand, dizziness threatens to pull her right back down again. She swallows hard and squeezes her eyes shut, clinging to the faucet knobs until the feeling passes. She opens her eyes and sees the floor dappled with pink dots…red dots. She reaches for her nose, but her hand comes away with nothing but water. She looks down and sees the trickle of scarlet running a path down the inside of her thigh. Her heart begins to pound, but she keeps her breathing even as she shuts off the water and opens the shower door. She manages to get dressed and put in a call to her doctor’s office. She doesn’t even realize Mulder isn’t there until she turns to tell him what’s happening.

“Mu-” she stops short, turning a quick circle in the living room. “Mulder?” she calls and is met with silence. She snatches up her cell phone and keys and heads for the door.

“What are these?” he asks, shaking the opaque pill bottle. Oblong white pills rattle about. They look like Tylenol.

“I’ll be honest, Fox, I don’t know what they are. But I know that they’ve been used for people in your position,” Diana says softly.

The inside of her sedan, what he assumes is her sedan, smells vaguely of stale cigarettes.

“They’ll give me back my memories?” he asks.

“I hope so,” she says.

He purses his lips and scrutinizes the contents.

“I asked you before, what’s in it for you?”

“Leaving was a mistake, one that I’m trying to correct,” she says.

The morning sun casts long shadows on the street ahead of them and catches a flash of foxfire moving out of Dana’s building. She is hustling down the stairs, fumbling with her keys as she goes. He starts pawing frantically for the handle, stuffing the pill bottle in his pocket as the door swings open and he steps out.

“Dana!” he calls as she is busy unlocking her car door.

She looks at him, shielding her eyes against the sun with her hand. She looks at him and then at Diana and drops her hand. He sees her utter a silent “oh” and a quick nod. She swings the door open and ducks into the car. The door slams shut and the engine is started before he can even get ten steps closer to her.

“Dana! Wait!” he yells as she pulls away.

WOMEN’S HEALTH SPECIALISTS

ALEXANDRIA, VA

She’s starting to feel like she should just pack along her own exam gown these days. The options lately have either been ones with too much fabric that have her drowning in thin cotton, falling off of her shoulders, or so worn out that the ties in back are missing and there’s little to no hope of keeping her ass covered. The pink one she has on now falls into both categories, somehow, so she is sitting on the excess fabric, putting a millimeter of distance between her rear and the tissue paper on the exam table.

Her doctor is on vacation, which is frustrating, and the doctor on call is running late, it seems. The room is chilly and she shivers as an involuntary shudder races down her spine. There is a gentle knock and the door opens. The doctor looks like he ought to be on the cover of an AARP magazine, with a head full of silver hair and face so lined with wrinkles that it looks like used tissue paper, he’s got to be at least 80 years old.

“Dana?” he asks kindly.

“Yes,” she answers.

“I’m Dr. Kurtzweil. I understand you’re having some spotting?” he asks as he washes his hands.

“Yes, for about an hour now.”

“Okay, well let’s see what’s what, huh?” he asks, motioning for her tie lie down.

She stares up at the ceiling, which has an inspirational poster tacked onto it, something about perseverance or persistence or some such, while she waits for him to find the heartbeat with the doppler monitor. The silence makes her heart thud.

Please, please, please, please, please…

The sound echoes off of the walls, a steady, almost mechanical rhythm. She didn’t even realize she’d been holding her breath.

“That’s a good sign!” he says with a chuckle. “Let’s do an ultrasound and take a peek.”

She swipes a tear away from her cheek and nods.

She doesn’t answer. He’s tried four times now, forcing himself to wait fifteen minutes between attempts. But she doesn’t answer. He imagines her, as she was last night, mindlessly wandering off to her own funeral. But he reminds himself that she saw him when she left, really saw him. Not looking through him like he was on a different axial plane. And he saw her too, saw the one thing she projected as her eyes flicked between him and Diana: hurt. He’d hurt her.

He drums his good hand on his thigh and bobs his good knee as he stares at the digital clock on her VCR. The pill bottle vibrates in his pocket and sounds as menacing as a rattle snake. He wonders if the contents are as pernicious as the last bottle of pills he’d been exposed to.

He startles when the key slips into the lock and the tumblers trip one by one. He stands and whirls around as the door swings open.

“Thank god,” he says as he crosses the room. He wraps his arms around her without a thought and pulls her close to his chest. She is as stiff as a two by four in his embrace, which scares him nearly as much as last night’s episode.

“Where did you go?” he asks as he pulls back, hand still clasping her shoulder.

“I need to lie down,” she says as she shucks his hand away and moves around him.

“Dana, slow down. Talk to me,” he says, ka-thunking behind her down the hall.

“I started bleeding,” she says as she pulls the elastic band from her hair, letting it fall loose and curly around her face.

“Bleeding? You mean?” he can’t really say it out loud.

“I went to my doctor’s office. I would have had you come, but you were…busy,” she says as she toes out of her plain white canvas tennis shoes.

“What did she say?” he asks, pulse rushing in his ears.

“He,” she corrects. “My doctor is on vacation so I had to see the physician on call.”

“I don’t care if was the Energizer bunny, as long as he’s got an MD. What did he say?”

She’s yet to look him in the eye, going about her business as she slips out of her jacket, fluffs a pillow, turns down the bed.

“I have a condition called low lying placenta. Last night’s…exertion, caused the bleeding, but it’s not serious and the baby is fine. I just need to take it easy.”

His shoulders sag and he lets out a long breath.

“The baby’s okay?” he repeats.

She finally looks up, eyes tired and red. 

“Yes,” she says softly.

A moment passes between them, reassuring looks and quick nods.

“I remembered something,” he says. “We were sitting on your bathroom floor, you were sick.”

She crinkles her brow and eyes him suspiciously. “That’s been every day this week,” she says matter of factly.

“It wasn’t this week. It was different.”

She sits down on the bed, still watching him.

“How do you know it was a memory?” she asks.

“I wrapped my arm around you and I asked you not to give up. Do you remember?”

Her mouth falls open by a tiny fraction and the look on her face says that yes, she does remember.

“I had given up. I thought I was going to die.”

He sits down next to her, hip to hip. “I knew then, that I couldn’t live without you…” he trails off, thinking carefully about his words. She looks like a doe caught out in the open and just as apt to lope away if spooked. “That’s when I knew that loved you.”

He can see her searching his face, looking around for a man she knows, who knows her. He wants to be that man again.

CASEY’S BAR

WASHINGTON DC

“Well, what have you to report?” he asks as he stubs out his cigarette in the heavy glass ashtray. The mahogany bar is long and beautifully kept for a quiet corner watering hole. It’s the kind of place the older crowd comes for a drink without the unseemly behavior of undergrads and townies.

Kurtzweil’s mouth draws in a tight, angry line, his thick eyebrows twitching nervously.

“Healthy fetus, 13 weeks gestation,” he says, staring at the amber liquid in his glass.

“And the samples?”

“Look, if you want a genetic profile, or stem cells or whatever, your best bet is cord blood.”

“You were told to collect genetic samples.”

“And I’m telling you that it is risky. And she knows that. Shook up as she was, there was no way she was going to consent to an amnio.”

Cancer man looks at him like he is completely insignificant. He seems to register that perhaps he is.

“I didn’t say anything about consent. I told you what I want. You know what will happen if you don’t.”

“You have your own people for this kind of thing. Why on earth are you doing this to me?”

“You’ve been allowed to toil too long, Alvin. Your books, your clumsy attempts to connect with Fox Mulder, you needed to be reminded of who it is you’re testing.”

The old man’s mouth bobs and his craggy face writes a story of utter indignation.

“You always were a son a bitch, Spender,” Kurtzweil says as he digs his wallet out of pocket and slaps a twenty on the bar.

“I’ve never claimed otherwise,” Cancer man says as he lights another cigarette.

The old man waves an angry hand and plods to the door, bruskly passing the leggy brunette making her way to the bar.

“Ah, Diana. Just in time. Can I get you a drink?”

His smile, seemingly a genuine one, is not returned as she sits down.

“Did he take them?” he asks.

“Yes, but he’s very suspicious,” she says.

“Perhaps he’s more like his old self than we thought.”

GEORGETOWN

WASHINGTON, DC

He sits on the edge of the bed and she, tucked under the covers, curled up on her left side, looks so small.

“What do you think they could be?” he asks as he holds up the bottle.

“I don’t know. But I think we should definitely have them analyzed,” she says.

“I’m sorry,” he says with a quick shake of his head. “You’re tired, you should rest.”

He begins to rise, ready to go make a call to the Gunmen and start trying to unravel whatever knot they’re in the center of.

“Stay awhile,” she says quietly. “Please?”

He nods and walks around the end of the bed. She reaches back and lifts the blankets behind her, a silent gesture for him to join her. He slips out of his shoe and crawls between the sheets, settling his weight behind her, bending his elbow gently over her middle and tucking his casted arm under the pillow beneath his head.

“I could’ve died last night,” she whispers.

“I won’t let that happen,” he says into her hair.

“I didn’t have any control. There’s nothing that scares me more than that,” she says, tears cracking in her voice.

“I know,” he says softly, pressing a gentle kiss on the spot behind her ear. “I remember.”


	13. Chapter 13

The afternoon sun is warm on his face and the wet sand under his bare feet yields in a way that is very satisfying. She’s ahead of him, maybe by twenty feet, palming the top of a floppy straw hat so the ocean breeze doesn’t carry it away. He feels like he probably already chased it down once or twice. She’s got a thin piece of blue fabric tied around her waist in a makeshift skirt and a white bathing suit on. Her pale Irish skin has turned warm and new freckles dapple her shoulders and back.

A little warm hand squeezes his and jerks his arm. He looks down to find a little girl, no more than four-years-old, with shoulder length strawberry blonde locks, wispy and curly at the ends, like baby hair. She is hopping on one foot, and with great determination, her mouth set in a concentrated line. He loves her so much it makes his chest hurt.

“Whatcha doin’, Munchkin?” he asks.

“Making it look like I only have one foot,” she says, making another hop.

He looks back at their prints in the sand and sees that yes, it looks like she only has one foot.

“Or,” he says as he scoops her up and drops her onto his shoulders, her little legs bracketing his neck, “we can make it look like you spontaneously levitated!”

She shrieks with delight and pats his cheeks.

“Mama! “ she shouts with a giggle. “I lebitated!”

Scully turns around. Scully, not Dana, he reminds himself. She laughs, a delighted, surprised laugh and watches them as they catch up to her. He’s suddenly much faster without Gracie’s one-footed progression.

Gracie? He wonders to himself. Grace was my grandmother’s name.

He opens his eyes and is ready to squint against the sunshine. But it is dark, and instead, he is squinting to make out her sleeping form across from him. She’s on her side, back to him and snoring softly. His face still feels warm though. Maybe for other reasons.

When she said “stay awhile,” he thought maybe until she fell asleep. Or until the bleeding had stopped. Or perhaps until the next morning. But weeks later, he’s still climbing into bed with her every night, thankfully free of the hindrance of his casts. She was starting to get irritated with them snagging her something-thousand thread count sheets anyway.

Whether it’s because she’s come into the second trimester or the latest combination of meds, she seems to be feeling well enough to get irritated about things like that. That’s not to say every meal sticks. It doesn’t. But she’s able to keep down more than she has in the past several weeks and has even started gaining back a little of the weight she’s lost.

He reaches out and lays his hand in the curve where her waist meets her hip. She stirs, just a little, and settles in one breath.

They’ve abstained from anything besides sleeping, not because of any doctor’s restrictions, but because he doesn’t even know where to begin. He doesn’t really remember a time when they were together in that way, not clearly. But the fact that she can no longer button her trousers is evidence that they clearly were, at least once anyway.

But he is remembering, more and more everyday and it has nothing to do with the “gift” from Diana. It’s coming back to him in his sleep. He thinks so anyway, he seems to see things a little more clearly at the beginning of each day. But he often finds himself checking with her to define what was real and what was a dream. Because some of it doesn’t seem possible, even to him. Since neither of them has been cleared to return to work, they have more than enough time to talk.

“Your hair was longer when we met,” he muses as he watches her set a mug of tea on the table. She is wrapped in her white terrycloth robe, one bare foot tucked under her thigh. She smiles and nods.

“It was,” she affirms. “I cut it right after our first case together.”

“I saw you in your underwear on that case…real or dream?” he asks playfully.

She chuckles and blows on her mug. A quick blush dances across her cheeks and she nods, eyes closed, chin tucked to her chest.

“Real,” she says, her embarrassment evident.

“I didn’t think any less of you,” he says. He wants to reach out and tip her chin up so she’ll look at him. It’s one of those moments that they’ve been dancing around rather inelegantly lately. Whether because of his bad timing or her circumspect nature, the connection, or rather re-connection keeps getting missed. This time he’ll blame her ringing phone.

“Scully,” she answers with an air of authority he hasn’t heard from her in a while. She stands and begins to wander around the kitchen. A long pause, a knitted brow, a nibbled lower lip. “Uh-huh…interesting,” she says. “Okay, thanks.”

“What’s interesting?” he asks.

“The lab at Quantico finally finished the analysis of those pills,” she says, leaning on the edge of the counter.

“And?”

“Well, it’s similar to melatonin, but it also seems to have some additional synthetic chemicals that they haven’t been able to nail down.”

“They’ve had almost three weeks. Is it that hard?”

“Well, there’s always a backlog and it’s not like this is attached to a case. I called in a favor with Steve.”

“Steve?” he asks, a playful little accusation in his tone.

“Yeah,” she says. She’s clearly retreated into her own head and is chewing on whatever she’s just been told.

“Melatonin is like an over the counter sleep aid, right?”

“Yeah,” she confirms.

“It keeps coming back to sleeping pills, doesn’t it?” he asks as he crosses his arms.

“I wonder if the idea is to somehow ramp up your REM sleep.” She’s not even talking to him really. Just thinking out loud.

“To what end?”

She seems to come back to having the conversation with him rather than inside her own head.

“Who knows, Mulder?”

“Someone knows.”

OFFICE OF THE LONE GUNMEN

“Office” is a generous word for their location. It’s more like a den or a nest, feathered with wiring and surreptitiously gathered bits of technology. It is all haphazardly compiled, unidentifiable things scattered on industrial metal shelves. The only orderly portion is the corner the that houses the printing press and TLG archives. It is clearly Byers’ dominion.

There is a parcel of bedrooms at the back of the space where each of them have carved out their own oasis. It’s like a fraternity where no one ever graduates, Mulder muses.

“Who gave you this?” Byers asks as he looks at the computer screen with wonder. The blue light reflects off of Frohike’s glasses as he leans in to get a better look.

“Diana,” he says flatly.

“Mata Hari,” Frohike grimaces.

“She said it would help me get my memory back,” he says as he crosses his arms and leans against one of the long tables.

Byers jerks away from the screen incredulously and the motley crew pass each other wary glances.

“What is it, fellas?” Mulder asks.

“Are you familiar with Project Mnemosyne?” Byers asks.

“No, but I’m guessing I’m about to be,” he says with trepidation.

“There was a lot of work put into an effort to create perfect human memory storage by the DOD starting just after the Bay of Pigs,” Langly begins to explain.

“For what?”

“Next level spying, eliminating the need for photographs, cyphers,” Byers says.

“They were trying to create human cameras and find a way to download the data,” Frohike adds.

“But this started in the sixties, so the drugs were more advanced than the computers,” Byers continues.

“Some freaky shit came outta MK Ultra,” Langly says, continuing their round robin explanation.

“And it got rolled right into Mnemosyne,” Frohike punctuates by pointing at the screen.

“You’re saying this stuff is the real deal?” he says, eyes wide.

“It sure looks like it,” Byers answers.

“I could really get back my memories?” he asks the trio.

“Not just your recent memories, Mulder, everything,” Langly says, a warning in his voice.

“Including the things you’d like to forget,” Frohike adds. “Buried trauma, every mistake, every nightmare, all at the front of your mind and all at once.”

“Everything we got out of the declassified portions of the project files indicates that test subjects had an incredibly high mortality rate,” Byers says.

“Due to what?” Mulder asks.

“Suicide,” Frohike says grimly. “Diana is setting you up.”

“There are some things you don’t want to remember,” Byers punctuates.

GEORGETOWN

WASHINGTON, DC

If she is forced to feign another moment’s interest in her mother’s prattling, she may pass out. What started as an effort to purchase a few items of maternity clothing, became a day lost in the labyrinth of the local mall. Now, back at home, Maggie Scully is measuring the windows in her spare room for the curtains she plans on sewing.

“With the light in here, it may be better to go with a darker color,” she says as she teeters on a chair, arms stretched from end to end at the top of the window.

She leans on the door jamb and stifles a yawn with the back of her hand.

“Don’t you think, Dana?” she asks.

Of course, she hasn’t been paying attention, all she can think about is crawling into bed and waiting for Mulder to get back.

“Uh, yeah,” she fakes.

Maggie looks down from her perch and seems to deflate a little.

“Oh honey,” she sighs as she climbs down. “You look just exhausted.”

“I’m okay,” she says, keeping her voice light. She’s always been a terrible liar.

“I guess I just got carried away,” she says as she wraps her in a hug. “It seems like things have just now settled down a bit for you.”

“It’s okay, mom,” she assures her.

“Hello?” a voice calls as the front door opens.

Maggie kisses her cheek and smiles knowingly. “I’ll head home and let you get some rest,” she says, squeezing her shoulders.

Scully nods and closes her eyes a moment. God, it feels good. The burn of exhaustion blazes against her eyelids. It’s such a satisfying burn though. She could drift to sleep right there. She used to be able to run the obstacle course in the morning and go on to work a full day, maybe even burn a little midnight oil on her latest journal article or some such. Now, a half day shopping has her ready to call it a night at 4:30 in the afternoon.

The quiet exchange between Mulder and her mother registers and she drags her eyes back open.

“She needs to go lay down, Fox,” Maggie reports.

“It won’t be hard to convince her,” he says.

The front door closes with a snick and his hand are on her shoulders, kneading gently at her sore muscles.

“Wow,” he says.

“Hm?”

“You two cleaned a couple places out, huh?”

The spare room has no less than ten shopping bags scattered on the bed.

“Mom calls it retail therapy,” she says with a little smile. 

“Better than Prozac, I hear,” he says, guiding her into the hall and towards the bedroom. “Why don’t you go lay down and I’ll order some dinner?”

“I may not make it to dinner,” she says, let him move her about like a Thanksgiving day balloon.

“Gotta try to eat,” he says, stopping in the doorway and watching her as she shuffles to the bed.

She nods, too tired to argue.

“Oh,” she says as she sits down. “I almost forgot. What did the guys say?” she asks.

He shifts his weight from one foot to the other and his hands flit about trying to find a place to land. He’s tap dancing before he even opens his mouth, she can tell.

“Nothing important,” he says crossing his arms.

“What did they think of the results we got from the lab?”

“They really didn’t know what to make of them. It wasn’t anything they’ve seen before.”

She slips out of her shoes and curls into a question mark on the bed.

“Hm,” she sighs to herself.

“Italian or thai?” he asks, quickly changing the subject.

“Surprise me,” she murmurs, sleep already dragging her under.

As he fiddles with the pill bottle in his pocket, he inwardly kicks himself, he should’ve told her the truth, he knows. It’s likely she knows he was lying. More than likely.  
The “what if” of it all is nagging at him, like a forgotten shirt pin. Unlocking not just his forgotten recent memories, but the deeper ones, the ones with long black braids and big blue eyes, it is a deeply alluring notion. He glances back at her, already asleep, her features slack and relaxed. He chews his lip and pulls the bottle from his pocket, thinking it may be full of answers rather than questions.

Gracie is hard at work digging a very deep hole. Her little yellow shovel is flings wads of wet sand over her shoulder in a predictable repetition. He chuckles at her determination. She makes the same face Scully does when she’s concentrating. The setting sun is in her curls and catches the hints of red in her hair. Scully is next to him, sitting cross-legged and reading a book. Her hair, longer like it was when they met, ruffles against her shoulder blades in the light breeze.

“Mulder,” she whispers, not looking up from her book.

“What?” he answers, seeing the sun in her eyelashes.

She reaches out and rests her hand is on his hip, smiling, that sweet satisfied smile of hers that he still doesn’t see enough of.

“Mulder,” she whispers again, patting his hip gently.

He opens his eyes and finds her shadowed face in front of him. No sunkissed cheeks or fresh freckles.

“Hmm, yeah,” he mumbles, getting his wits about him.

Her warm little fingers wrap around his wrist and pull his hand to the firm mound of her belly, pressing his palm against it.

“Feel,” she whispers, a giggle in her voice.

He concentrates on the sensation of her soft skin under his hand when he feels movement, as subtle and gentle as a hummingbird fluttering about.

“Hey Munchkin,” he says softly. “Whatcha doin’?”


	14. Chapter 14

GEORGETOWN, WASHINGTON DC

3:42 AM

It’s not that he expected something to happen immediately. There’s still a chalky aftertaste in his mouth and he swears he can feel the pill land in his stomach. He looks around Scully’s bathroom as if he might find some kind of sudden clarity in the ancient tiles. But there is nothing. No revelation, no sudden onslaught of memory. And the logical part of his brain reminds him not to be disappointed. It’s funny, he notes, that the logical voice in his head sounds a lot like Scully’s.

He flips the light switch and ambles back to the bedroom. She stirs as he slides between the sheets and mumbles something sleepily.

“Go back to sleep,” he whispers.

“Are you okay?” she sighs.

“I’m okay,” he tells her reaching out to smooth her hair down.

TWO DAYS LATER

2:20 AM

He swallows the pill dry and again, looks around the bathroom. She’s got all kinds of odd little things in there. He notices a glass ashtray on one of the tables near the tub. Upon closer inspection, he sees that it is emblazoned with the seal of the US Navy. He knows it must have been her father’s, because he now remembers that her father was a Captain. But he also has an image of her, perched on the edge of her clawfoot tub, her hair short and curled at the ends the way it was when they were first partnered together. He can see her, rear balanced on the edge of the bath and the arches of her feet against the table on the opposite wall. The glass ashtray balances precariously on her bent knees as she takes a long drag from a cigarette.

“You okay?” he’d asked her.

“Coping mechanism,” she said as she held up the cigarette.

“Maybe you should have a drink to celebrate keeping your liver,” he teased.

“One vice at a time,” she said as she flicked the ash into the thick glass.

He takes a deep breath and can smell the smoke, rich and familiar. He opens his eyes and it’s gone, the image, anyway. As he turns off the light, he swears he can still smell the smoke.

FOUR DAYS LATER

4:14 AM

He’s returned the pill bottle to its hiding place in one of the many assorted baskets in her bathroom. He was surprised to find that most of them are actually empty and serve only a decorative purpose. He turns off the light before opening the door that adjoins to her bedroom, ready to tip toe quietly and avoid the squeaky spots in her hardwood flooring.

But as he opens the door, he sees that there is no reason to worry about waking her. She is sitting on the edge of the bed, arms crossed.

“Did I wake you?” he asks.

“Only every night for the last week, Mulder,” she says softly, the hurt evident in her voice. “Were you ever going to tell me?” she asks.

He doesn’t want to answer. And she can see it. She draws her lower lip between her teeth and nods. She swipes at her cheek and sniffles as she looks away, quickly laying down and disappearing under the covers. He does not return to bed and instead, stretches out on the couch and waits for sunrise.  
In the morning, he approaches her slowly as she is setting about making tea and oatmeal.

“Scully,” he begins.

“You know, Mulder, things have settled down here. You don’t have to keep hanging around.”

He feels like he’s been swallowing bricks instead on little white pills.

“Is that what you think I’m doing?”

“I think it’s time we start getting back to our own lives,” she says simply, as simply as reminding him to pick up a gallon of milk or to turn in an expense report.

“Our own lives?” he echoes.

“Yes. I’ve already put in my request to return to work. Maybe you should consider doing the same.”

She shuffles by him, mug in one hand, breakfast bowl in the other and takes a seat at the table.

“Back in the field?” he asks. He glances at her burgeoning belly, the gentle curve of it so subtle that no one would notice if they didn’t know what they were looking for.

“Of course back in the field,” she says as she blows on her mug and takes a sip of tea.

“Scully I…” he pauses. Lecturing her about her health or protecting the baby will get him nowhere. And her icy disposition has nothing to do with wanting her space and everything to do with the fact that he’s been doing something foolish behind her back. She prefers that he do those kinds of things in plain view so she’s not surprised when there’s a mess to clean up.

“How did you know what I was doing?” he asks as he sits down across from her.

“I can always tell when you’re lying, Mulder,” she says softly. “Besides, you started calling me ‘Scully’ again.”

His mind flashes on the night that she tried to leave and it is suddenly as vivid as if it is happening right in front of him. He can feel her struggling in his arms, fighting and clawing at him.

“I’m not going to go,” he says simply.

“I was trying to be polite, Mulder,” she says. “But let me be clear: You need to go.”

Another flash, this time of her unconscious on the her bathroom floor, her skin so pale and her body so weak.

“I can’t, Scully.”

She eyes him, that stern look reserved for sexist local detectives and obnoxious suspects.

“My temporary assignment still stands, so I’ll probably be on a plane by the end of the week anyway,” she says as she stands and dumps the last of her tea in the sink.

“I’m coming with you,” he says, feeling suddenly desperate.

She whirls around, eyes wide, mouth open.

“I don’t need you to protect me, Mulder. I can take care of myself.”

“What if you try to walk out in the middle of the night again? What then?” he says as he gets up and closes the distance between them.

“It was a fluke, a combination of hormones and exhaustion.”

“And the 47 people who burned to death? Was that a fluke too?”

“I’ll be fine,” she says, setting her jaw tightly.

He takes a deep breath. “There’s something else I didn’t tell you,” he says, unable to meet her eyes.

Her shoulders drop and she is searching his face the same way she would a dark corridor.

“What?” she asks. He is silent. “Mulder, what?” she asks, more urgently.

Everyone who died therel had implants, just like yours.”

“Who told you that?”

“Skinner pulled the reports for me.”

Her chin quivers and a tear slips free. She draws in a long, rattling breath and walks away.

“Scully, wait,” he calls.

“Go home, Mulder,” she replies, her voice flat and tired.

HEGEL PLACE

WASHINGTON, DC

The fish are all dead, which he expected. He can’t help but notice that his entire apartment looks dead as well. His things are utilitarian, basic. They exist to serve a purpose, nothing decorative here. He remembers that he’s often thought of his home as a cold, calculating mind. Scully’s place feels like a beating heart with its warm colors and rich textiles. It looks like someone lives, really lives in her home. His looks like someone simply lands there on occasion.

He drops his bag on the floor and sinks into the creaky leather couch. It’s never been very comfortable. Freezing cold in the winter, sticky and hot in the summer. He picks up the remote and turns on the TV, flipping through the news channels which are all showing the same, terrifying image. He sets the remote down and leans forward to get a better look. The crawl at the bottom of the screen reports a bombing in Dallas, Texas, unknown numbers dead and injured.

GEORGETOWN

WASHINGTON, DC

“Hello?” she answers her trilling phone.

“Agent Scully, it’s AD Skinner,” his stern, paternal voice greets.

“Hello sir. What can I do for you?”

“Have you turned on your television today?”

“No, sir,” she answers.

She fumbles through the stacks of paper and files Mulder has left on her coffee table until she finds the remote and turns on the television. There’s a short lag between pushing the button and the screen coming to life, which is just enough time to set her heart racing.

“Oh my god,” she breathes upon taking in the scene before her. The front of the Dallas building has essentially been sheared off, smoke drifts throughout and the omnipresent flashing lights are simply everywhere.

“The Dallas field office is asking for every available pathologist down there as soon as possible,” Skinner says. “There are going to be a lot of bodies to identify.”

“Of course, I’ll be on the first flight,” she says as she stands, perhaps a little too fast, as she sways from a slight head rush.

“That’s not why I called, Agent,” he says.

“It’s not?” she asks, sitting back down again.

“I called because someone from Forensics will be reaching out to you and asking you to go to Dallas and I didn’t want you to feel obligated to accept the request.”

“I’m sorry?” she says.

“With everything that’s happened in the last few weeks, if you don’t want to go, I’ll have your back.”

“I appreciate your concern, sir, but I’m happy to go where I’m needed,” she answers, feeling infinitely stronger than she did just a few moments prior.

“If you’re sure, Agent,” he says cautiously.

“I am, sir,” she replies firmly. “I appreciate the call.”

3 DAYS LATER

She’d called to tell him where she was headed, which was better than he expected. He had hoped that she wouldn’t go anywhere at all, that she would let him come back so they could talk.

“It’ll be two weeks at most,” she’d said, her voice already sounding tired. 

“Call me when you get there?” he asked

“I’ll try, it’s going to be busy,” she said, a warning tone in her voice.

He hasn’t heard from her since. Out of respect, he hasn’t tried to call her. But he wants to, badly. He did take her advice and file all the necessary paperwork to return to work. Which is why he is now tapping his foot as the elevator sinks into the bowels of the Hoover building.

As he crosses the threshold into their office, he gets a vivid flash of their last conversation there, how angry and hurt she was. The way her face crumbled and her shoulders   
dropped. He closes his eyes and fights the intense headache that follows the photo negative image of her face.

“I heard you were back,” a feminine voice says. He whirls around and finds Diana standing in his doorway, a pleased little smile on her face. “Are they working?” she asks, an eagerness written in her posture.

“Are what working?” he asks, although playing dumb has never once worked on her.

“Are your memories coming back?” she asks.

He can almost feel her poking around in his head, watching his body language, getting a read on him before he’ll even have a chance to open his mouth.

“They are, aren’t they?” she says, smile growing broad.

“Diana, if you were to make a list of things that are none of your concern, I should be at the very top,” he says as he walks around the desk and drops into his chair.  
Her smile fades and she draws in a breath that is clearly suppressing tears.

“You still don’t trust me,” she says with a shuddering sigh.

“Nothing gets past you, does it?”

She nods, ever so slightly and tugs at her severe black jacket, adjusting her armor in much the same way Scully does.

“I assume you’ve heard about the bombing in Dallas?” she asks.

“I’ve been recovering, not living under a rock.”

“There’s more there than you know, Fox,” she says.

“I don’t know anything,” he says with a shrug.

“Start asking questions.”

“What questions?”

“Follow your gut. It’s served you well.”

“That all?” he asks.

“For now,” she says with a curt nod. “See you around, Fox.”

“Hope not!” he calls as she leaves.

The sound of her high heels clicking a staccato retreat echoes the heavy thud of his pulse in his ears. It’s so loud that he almost misses the shrill tone of his phone ringing.   
He fumbles for a moment, the ache building between his temples like a growing thunderhead.

“Mulder,” he mumbles, eyes closed.

“Mulder, it’s me. I need you here as soon as possible.”

His eyes fly open and he lurches up from the desk.

“Hold on, I’m coming.”


	15. Chapter 15

“I just landed,” he says as he navigates his way out of the jetway.

“Hurry,” she says, her voice echoing.

“I’m coming, I’ll be there in half an hour.”

The terminal is bustling with people, like a churning sea of humanity. He finds he has a little bit of hate for each and every one of them who are slowing his ability to get out of the damned airport and closer to her.

There is a broad thunderhead moving in over the city, cleaving the blue sky in half like a long black curtain drawing. The air smells like impending rain and the heat seems to be dissipating by the minute. He slings his bag over his shoulder and makes his way to the nondescript four door rental car. He steps gingerly as an ache settles into his left leg. He wonders briefly if the healing bones will forever be an amateur forecasting tool.

He eases onto the highway, cars zipping past him at well past the speed limit. He remembers Scully jokingly referring to it as the North Texas Speedway the last time they were in town. He’s glad he remembers things like that now, although he’s not enjoying some of the other things coming back to him as much.  
He navigates and finds his way to one of the local hospitals taking in the overflow of bodies and seems to find the morgue by instinct alone. The end of the hallway is guarded by a young man in fatigues with an MP armband. He passes warily and heads for the swinging doors straight ahead. Through the window, he can see her hunched over a microscope, fine tuning the view. Her pale blue scrubs are almost the same color as her eyes. A smile wells up on his face like a bubbling spring. God, he’s missed her.

She looks up and a tiny smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. It fades as quickly as it appeared as she tentatively looks around before waving him in.  
He pushes the door open and notes that the room feels significantly cooler than the hallway.

“You okay?” he asks as he walks to her.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” she answers as she grabs a pair of gloves and pulls gently on his sleeve. “It’s back here.”

“What is?”

He follows her to the back of the room, hovering behind her as she snaps on her gloves and opens the heavy cold storage door. She peers around the room again, clearly concerned that someone may see what they’re up to.

She secures the door behind them and pulls a small tray off of one of the shelves and holds it up in front of him as she removes a small cloth covering it.  
He blinks, trying to reconcile what he’s seeing in front of him.

It’s a hand. But it’s not. Not like he’s ever seen anyway.

It looks like an opaque gelatin mold, even the bones are somewhat transparent. Severed at the wrist, it’s obviously been in a fire but the tissue has not responded in the way he knows burnt flesh ought to.

“What the hell is this?” he asks, leaning in for a better look.

“That’s what I asked,” she says with a huff.

“It looks like a jellyfish,” he remarks, stretching back up to his full height. “I assume this was pulled from the building?” he asks.

“In a manner of speaking,” she says as she covers the hand again and places it back on the shelf. “It was lodged in the abdominal cavity of another body,” she explains.

“How did it get there?”

“It was likely projected,” she says with a shrug. “Whatever it is, someone is looking for it.”

“Who?”

“I had four military police officers in here asking if anything unusual had turned up,” she says.

“Unusual how?” he asks.

“They didn’t elaborate, but I’m pretty sure that fits the bill,” she says, pointing a gloved finger at the shelf.

“Why do you think they’re looking for it?”

“To make it disappear,” she says as she pulls off the gloves and directs him out of the freezer.

“So what have you been able to find out?”

“I wasn’t able to retrieve prints, the tissue is too far gone. But the samples I was able to analyze are…disturbing,” she says.

He follows her to the microscope, trailing a couple of steps behind like a lost puppy.

“This body was exposed to a pathogen, I see signs of a massive infection,” she says as she points at a set of slides on the table.

“Is it anything you’ve seen before?” he asks as he leans down and looks into the microscope.

“It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen,” she says in a menacing whisper.

“How the hell would a body with that kind of infection get into that building?”

“I don’t know, but we’ve got to get those samples out of here,” she says.

“Well, let’s go,” he says as he waves a hand at the door.

“It’s not that simple,” she says. “The kid at the other end of the hall has been checking everyone as they leave.”

“What for?”

“‘Preservation of the chain of custody’ is the line we got,” she says incredulously.

“They think federal officers would smuggle out prosecutorial evidence?”

“Well, they’re not wrong, it just has nothing to do with prosecuting the bombing itself,” she says with a mischievous smile.

“Put the slides in your bra,” he says.

Her brow crinkles and she glances down.

“Plenty of cover in there,” he adds with a grin.

She gives him a withering look, which he loves and fears in equal measure, and frankly, deserves at the moment. But it’s true, the bras have become bigger and more utilitarian in recent weeks. Her breasts seem to be following suit. He can’t act like he hasn’t noticed.

Her mouth tightens and her eyes narrow. He can tell she’s actually considering it.

“Go watch the door,” she whispers as she snatches up the slides.

When she emerges from cold storage he is rocking back and forth on his heels expectantly.

“What about the hand?” he asks.

“How much room do think I have in there?” she asks, exasperated.

“No, I wasn’t saying…geez Scully,” he says with a chuckle. “I mean someone is gonna find it, right?”

“Not likely, I just stuffed it back in that body.”

“I guess that’s one way to get it out of here,” he says with a shrug.

She realizes, as they push through the doors, that her heart is pounding furiously. Her gut begins to churn as the doors squeak as they swing back and forth behind them. She wavers a little and his fingertips drift to the small of her back.They draw closer to the young man at the end of the hall who steps at attention in front of the elevator door.

She can’t help it, she can feel the bile rising at the back of her throat and the angry wave of nausea hitting her full force.

“Scully?” Mulder asks quietly.

“I’m gonna be sick,” she whispers with a gulp.

“You alright ma’am?” the young soldier asks.

“She’s not feeling well,” Mulder says as he wraps an arm over her shoulders.

The young man blinks and looks at her with wide eyes. He’s still blocking the elevator door, however.

“Private,” she says, trying to stifle the rising tide. “I don’t have a bag on me, neither does Agent Mulder. Nothing for you to search. Unless you’d like to invest in a new pair of boots, it might be better to just let us by.”

He looks momentarily panicked, but quickly nods and steps aside, slapping the elevator button with the palm of his hand. The doors ping and open almost instantly and she is immensely grateful.

“I hope you feel better, ma’am,” he says meekly.

“Thank you, Private,” she says as Mulder helps shuttle her into the car.

The doors slide shut and she sags against him.

“You okay?” he asks, holding her more firmly.

“I’m dizzy,” she says, closing her eyes and swallowing thickly.

“I thought you were just trying to distract him” he says.

“It wasn’t intentional,” she whispers.

“Well it worked,” he says reassuringly. “When’s the last time you took your meds?”

She closes her eyes, trying to remember when that might have been. There’ve been so many bodies, so much work, she just doesn’t remember.

“I…I dunno,” she sighs.

“Okay, let’s get back to your hotel,” he says as the doors open.

They take a few short steps together and are out of the main doors and in the cool evening air. The gathering storm looks to unleash a torrent at any moment as lightning crackles through the clouds and thunder rumbles and growls overhead. 

She squirms from his embrace and dashes to the edge of the sidewalk so she can unload her stomach in the grass. Somewhere beyond the rawness in her throat and the involuntary heaving, she can feel his hand on her back, and his fingers pulling her hair away from her face.

“It’s okay,” he says, in dulcet, soothing tones. “You’re okay.”

She coughs and spits, angry that she’s almost used to the bitter tang in her mouth and the acrid smell.

Scully dozes in the car all the way to the hotel, which he is grateful for. The rain started pattering on the windshield almost as soon as he pulled out of the parking garage. As they drive, it is only getting heavier. Cars buzz by them at mach speeds, which he wouldn’t usually mind except for how hard it is becoming to see. Blessedly, they make it without incident and now his only concern is her. Get her inside, get her medicine, get her to bed. Nothing else. The evidence, whatever she’s stumbled upon takes a very distant backseat to her well being at the moment.

“C’mon, Scully,” he says as he reaches out and taps her shoulder.

“Hm,” she sighs as she rubs her eyes.

“We’re here,” he says. “Go on in, I’ll park the car,” he tells her.

She nods and hands him her spare room key as she gets out.

He’s soaked by the time he makes it into her room. She emerges from the bathroom, barefoot, but still in her oversized scrubs. She’s got the stack of slides she smuggled out wrapped in toilet paper in her right hand.

“Oh Mulder,” she sighs, shoulders sagging.

He looks down, shifting his weight from one foot to another and feeling the squish in his socks.

“You’d better get out of those before you catch a cold,” she says as she sets the slides on her bedside table.

“Dr. Scully, you ought to know better than most that a person doesn’t catch a cold from being cold,” he says as she crouches down to untie his shoes.

“Whatever, you’re dripping everywhere,” she says as she sits on the edge of the bed.

“Did you take anything yet?” he asks, shucking out of his soaked shoes and socks.

“Zofran with a Benedryl chaser,” she says with a yawn.

He nods as he peels out of his sodden t-shirt and goes to unbutton his jeans. She doesn’t seem to take much notice as she yawns again and lays down.

“I’ll go see about a room once this stuff dries a little.”

“Oh, don’t bother,” she mumbles. “You can just stay here tonight.”

Down to nothing but his jockeys, he knows he ought to feel exposed, but he doesn’t. He sits on the other side of the bed and watches her for a moment.

“You gonna sleep in those?” he asks as he reaches out and tugs on the sleeve of her top.

“Maybe, they’re pretty comfy,” she says.

“They have blood on them,” he remarks.

She rolls to her side, curls into question mark and opens her eyes.

“Why did you do it?” she asks softly.

He could ask what she’s talking about, but he knows. Why did he take the pills, why did he hide it, why didn’t he tell her what the Gunmen had found? He reaches out and smoothes her hair behind her ear.

“Because I’m a coward,” he says. “I’m sorry, Scully. I really am.”

She closes her eyes and nods, curling in more tightly on herself, becoming even smaller.

“I am too,” she says softly.

“God, Scully. For what?”

“For basically kicking you out,” she murmurs.

“I deserved it,” he says softly.

“We’ve got a lot to figure out,” she says, her eyes drifting shut again.

“We do, but it’ll keep,” he says as he leans in and kisses her forehead.

He didn’t expect her to reach for him, but she does, her hand clutching the back of his neck and ruffling through his hair. She opens her eyes again and as quickly as he connects what’s happening, it’s already happening. Her mouth is covering his fiercely and he can’t help but moan. She unfolds like a flower and wraps around him. He can feel the mound of her little belly bumping up against him, the strong muscles of her thigh as she drapes it over his hip and squeezes. He’s never been one to struggle with getting an erection, but this is probably the fastest he’s ever gone from flaccid to rock hard in his adult life. She levers his mouth open with her tongue and her hand is raking gently through his hair as she conducts a thorough investigation of his dental fillings. He grabs a handful of her rounded ass and she jolts against him with a whimper.

She rolls away, breathless and begins working her shirt up over head. Just as quickly, he is grabbing at the thin cotton of her pants and dragging them down her legs. She shifts fully onto her back and props herself up on her elbows. She looks so different, her now ample breasts, encased in a sturdy beige bra, sitting atop the gentle swell beneath. The alarm bells start going off in his head as he kneels between her knees.

“What?” she says, chest heaving.

“Should we be doing this?” he asks nervously.

She seems to become suddenly self-conscious, drawing her legs up and together, closing off.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what got into me,” she murmurs. Her eyes dart around, anywhere but to him.

“Scully, no, no, no,” he says, reaching for her. “I mean is it okay for the baby? Safe, I mean?”

He cups her cheek and her skin feels like rose petal. She looks up and he can see what he’s done, a thousand little transgressions and half a dozen big ones are reflected back at him.

“I just don’t want to hurt you,” he adds.

He watches her for a long moment, the blush across her chest and cheeks, the pulse thrumming under her jaw.

“Then come here,” she says, just above a whisper.


	16. Chapter 16

Jesus, God almighty he hates fire. Hates it. The smoke is billowing like an ever rising dark tower, blacker than the night sky above. Bits of ash float through the air, sticking to his sweaty skin. He pushes against the crowd, trying to get closer, past the throng of gawkers. The red bricks of the building are blackened where the flames continue to claw their way out of the windows, like some great beast trying to escape.

The anxiety creeping its way up his spine feels like a herd of spiders. She got out, he tells himself. Of course she got out. She has to have gotten out. He scans along the bank of ambulances and fire trucks, looking for a tell tale tuft of copper hair poking out of a grey blanket, but he can’t see her. He sees her neighbors, huddled together and crying, her landlord rubbing his shiny head.

“Scullaaaaaay!” he shouts, his voice eaten by the din.

Nothing.

He shoves past the throng, trying to get to the group of people from her building.

“Is she here?” he asks.

The landlord looks up, his glasses smudged with soot.

“She’s out of town, isn’t she?” he asks fearfully.

“N-no,” he stutters. “We got back this morning.”

“Oh god,” the old man laments, looking back and the flaming shell of the building.

He doesn’t even think, just runs. If she’s in there he’s going to find her. If she’s dead, he’s going with her.

“Here!” a voice calls distantly…her voice, he realizes. “I’m here!”

He turns a quick circle, looking through all of the darkened faces.

“Mulder, I’m right here,” a hand pressing against his shoulder. “Look at me.”

He blinks, blinks, blinks again and there she is, right in front of him. Right on top of him?

He looks around and the chaos is gone, replaced by the uneasy quiet of the motel room. Outside, the rain is still pattering against the windows and the thunder rumbles in the distance. The worst of it has passed.

“Oh god,” he exhales, wrapping his arms around her.

“You okay?” she asks softly, her voice still heavy with sleep.

He pulls back and looks at her, bathed in the soft light from the parking lot, and has to catch his breath.

“I thought I lost you,” he murmurs as he buries his face in the crook of her neck.

“I’m here,” she says, melting on top of him like warm caramel. “I’m right here.”

DALLAS, TX

6:17 AM

In some ways, he expected her to be gone in the morning. Lord knows he deserves it. Maybe it’s just the pessimist in him, the voice that sounds an awful lot like his father’s reminding him that he’s not good enough for her, not worth it and can only get her hurt. The fact that there will soon be a third party in the equation complicates everything as well. He wonders if she and the baby might just be better off without him.

He buries his head against the pillow and inhales deeply. He catches a whiff of whatever body lotion or shower gel she’s been using lately.

He hears the shower sputter to life in the bathroom and feels a sudden rush of relief, muscles he didn’t even know were tensed seem to relax. She didn’t leave. Of course she didn’t leave.

He startles when his phone begins to chirp from the bedside table.

“Mulder,” he answers, his voice rough.

“You’re in Texas,” she says matter of factly.

“Good morning to you, too, Diana,” he grouses as he flings the sheets clear.

“What have you found?” she asks.

“That there are more guns inside the nearest Applebee’s than the entire Hoover Building?” he pops off.

“I need to show you something,” she says.

“I think I’ve seen everything I care to from you,” he says as he rubs his forehead.

“Fox, listen to me,” she says, her voice turning to a harsh whisper. “This is much, much bigger than you realize.”

“Well, whatever it is, it’ll have to wait until I get back to DC.”

“I’m here in Dallas and so are the people who are working to cover up what this really is. I need to see you.”

He looks at the closed bathroom door and grits his teeth.

“Not without Scully.”

There is a long pause, a deep breath. “Are you sure that’s a good idea, considering?” she asks.

“Considering?” he parrots.

“Her condition?”

People use the phrase “heart-stopping” all the time, but this may be one of the very few times that the description has actually applies. He feels the blood drain from his face like someone has a pulled a plug from his body. If Diana knows that Scully is pregnant, it’s likely that the very people who they don’t want knowing are in the loop as well. Fear and rage battle for dominance, but both are doing a spectacular job getting his heart beating again.

“It could be dangerous, Fox,” she says. “I know how important she is to you.”

“Scully can decide for herself,” he says, his voice wavering.

“Decide what?” Scully asks.

He whips around and finds her standing in the doorway of the bathroom, wrapped in a standard scratchy hotel towel and drying her hair with another.

“I assume you know where we are?” he asks Diana.

“I’ll be there in an hour,” she responds. 

“Decide what?” she repeats, more insistently this time.

He sets the phone down and clasps his hands together, staring across the room at the wall.

“That was Diana. She says she’s got information, something to show me” he explains.

“And what is it I’m deciding?” she asks his back.

“If you’re coming along to find out what it is.”

The sound of her bare feet padding against the thin hotel rug draws closer and the mattress dips when she sits down next him. Her hand drifts from her lap to the swell of her abdomen and she lets out a long breath.

“It’ll look suspicious if I’m not back at the morgue, don’t you think?” she asks, palming her belly.

“Probably,” he agrees.

“You go,” she says reaching for him.

He wraps her hand in his and draws the fine bones of her knuckles to his lips. He takes her in, her face clean and damp, the smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks, her hair wet and wavy. Regardless of what rabbit hole Diana is about to drag him down, he finds that the need to find some grander truth pales in comparison to the truth sitting right next to him.

He leans in and catches her mouth like a firefly. She whimpers and leans into him. That alone is enough to bring on the throbbing heat of an erection.  
As he plucks the towel away from her breasts she immediately feels the swelter building between her thighs. His mouth leaves hers and steals her breath along with it. He trails long, warm kisses down her throat, along her clavicle. It’s not until his tongue sweeps across her nipple that she breathes, gasps rather. With the gentle nip of an incisor, the tug of suction, she’s moved from gasping to moaning, keening even.

Logically, she knows that last night’s events coupled with hormones have her more keyed up than usual. At the moment, however, she doesn’t care much at all for logic and is far more apt to operate on animal instinct. Unlike her as it is, instinct is in the driver’s seat when she grabs his hand and directs it to her pulsing center. He chuckles against her breast and eases her down. He parts her lips and with pinpoint accuracy, finds her clit with his middle finger and begins a maddeningly slow dance around it. She jolts at the contact, her back arching off the bed. He continues kissing his way down her body, stopping just below her belly button and pulling away. She can feel his humid breath against the skin there in an amniotic ebb and flow. There is a flutter in her belly to match it.

His fingers pull away and she could sob for the loss of contact. But just as she’s about to open her eyes and groan in frustration, his mouth is there.

There, there, there. Right there. 

“Oh God,” she moans.

His fingers return and slide in like a key in lock, setting the tumblers open one by one, unlocking wave after wave of sensation. But it’s not enough. He’s moving so slowly, gently, like she’s made of candy glass that she knows that she won’t be able to come if he doesn’t change the pace, the pressure, 

jesuspleasesomething…

“Harder,” she whimpers.

He abides immediately, pressing his tongue firmly against her clit and curling his fingers inside her.

“Uhn,” she groans. She would say holy shit that’s perfect, but unintelligible noises are the best she can manage at the moment. She swears she hears, feels him chuckle again. But he doesn’t break his rhythm, thank God and she can feel it welling up in her, the pulsing warmth growing and spreading and, and, and…

She feels every neuron firing, every nerve ending tingling, every fiber of every muscle going as tight as a high wire.

And, and, and…

She’s gone, falling, flying, whatever, she’s not on that bed, or in that hotel or anywhere in the vicinity of her own body.

When she comes back to herself, his hands are soothing up and down her thighs, his mouth is on her belly, dropping soft, sweet kisses all over the rising island of skin.  
He crawls up beside her and pulls her close.

“Promise,” she whispers softly.

“Promise what?” he asks.

“Promise you’ll be careful. Come back safe,” she says as she curls into him.

He drops a kiss against her hairline and breathes in the smell of her shampoo.

“I promise,” he says.

Scully was primped and preened and out the door before Diana arrived, which is probably for the best.

“So,” he asks as he climbs into the passenger’s seat of her sedan. “Where’re we going?”

“To put the pieces together,” she says as she pulls out of the parking lot.

“You can cut the cryptic b.s. anytime,” he deadpans.

“Fine, I’ll tell you something real then,” she says.

“I doubt it,” he grumbles.

“There’s something I didn’t tell you,” she says.

“Something you didn’t tell me? Imagine my shock.”

“There are men who want to write the future, you know.”

“Feel free to come to the point,” he says, the tension seething through his teeth.

“But if they can’t write it, they want to get at it any way they can,” she says. “They’d go so far as to try to enhance the abilities of people with psychic tendencies without their consent or knowledge.”

“Am I supposed to be surprised by this?”

“Using medication, on men, women, children, all over the country, right here in Dallas, home in DC, even Topeka, Kansas.”

The gears start turning and where there were once disparate thoughts, he begins to see a clear picture.

“The little girl? The case Scully and I were on?”

“Not just her. You too.”

The gears come to a grinding halt.

“What? That doesn’t make any sense…I’m not…I’ve never…”

“You dreamed she was going to die because they were going to kill her.”

“And now?”

“They want her alive, she has something they need.”

“Tell me, tell me everything, right now, Diana.”

11:21 PM

It might be a record for her, five autopsies in one day. She is tired and sweaty and her fingertips are nearly numb from gripping a scalpel all damn day. Not to mention she’s been out of her head with worry for him.

She is slow to move across the hotel room, her legs feeling like lead and are about as useful at the moment. Flopping down on the bed, she promises that she’ll just close her eyes for a second, just a second. She’s got to take a shower still, and eat something, and wait for Mulder to come back with…her. She was hoping he’d already be back when she arrived. He hadn’t called all day nor had she tried to call him.

Silence isn’t good for her imagination. She tends to conjure up the worst case scenario every time. Considering the luck they’ve had lately, it’s not unjustified.  
When the gentle knock comes at the door, she startles, hands flying to protect her belly. She blinks the sleep out of her eyes as she sits up and looks at the clock.

2:01 am.

The door opens and Mulder steps in with the familiar brunette behind him. The both look like they’ve been in a dust storm.

“You okay?” she asks softly.

“Yeah,” he says, closing the door behind him. “You?”

“Yeah,” she responds, suddenly feeling very self conscious with this woman’s eyes on her.

“We’ve never been properly introduced,” she speaks up. “I’m Diana Fowley.”

“So I gathered,” she says, leveling a cool gaze at her. “Well, what did you two find?”

Mulder unloads the whole sorted tale, the tanker trucks, the corn crops, the swarms of bees, the bodies meant to be lost in the bombing. Scully looks incredulous beneath her veil of exhaustion.

“What’s your part in all of this?” Scully asks pointedly.

He’d like the truth on that one as well, although he’s certain they’ll never get it. Not really.

“They use me,” Diana says, a tremor in her voice. “Just like they use the two of you.”

“So you were meant to show him all of this? A set up?” Scully says.

He is staring out the window at this point, trying to reconcile everything he’s seen and heard today.

“No, I imagine I’ll pay dearly for this.”

“So why do it?” Scully asks.

“They’re only trying to save themselves. You two are the key to saving everyone.”

“How?” Scully asks.

There is a long silence. He watches the lights of the parking lot, swarming with moths and other night bugs. They whip about like mini cyclones, beating themselves against the blazing white lights, flying into their own deaths.

A soft, surprised cry breaks the silence followed by a painful hiss. He whirls around.

“What happened?” he asks.

“Something stung me.”


	17. Chapter 17

Scully and Diana both look stunned and based on that alone, he can’t ascertain what’s happening.

No, no, no, no, no….

They are stock still, all three of them and the only sound in the room is raspy, terrified breathing. He closes his eyes and sees the little girl on the beach, she disintegrates like a pillar of sand in a windstorm.

No, no, no, no, no….

Diana wavers and pitches forward ever so slightly, reaching for a wound under her shirt cuff. He lets out a long, relieved breath. Scully is okay, safe, safe, safe. He immediately feels guilty for it as he watches Diana’s eyes go distant and unfocused. 

“I’m…something’s…I can’t,” she stammers.

“She must have an allergy,” Scully says as she picks up the phone.

“I don’t,” she responds, her voice breathy and constricted.

He finally realizes that he has to do something and moves toward the unfolding crisis. He helps her to the bed, the one he and Scully shared the night before. He can feel her muscles twitching violently, as if an electric shock has been applied. She falls against the scratchy hotel comforter, looking as though she is fighting her own body. Absently, he notes that it’s the first time he’s touched her in nearly a decade.

Scully is in full doctor mode, checking Diana’s pulse, assessing pupil dilation, relaying all the information into the receiver pressed between her shoulder and ear. He knows that he should feel…something. Something other than gratitude that Scully is okay. But he just doesn’t.

She is unconscious by the time the paramedics arrive and take her away. The blue and red lights of the ambulance reflect off of the wet pavement.

He watches it pull off from the doorway, Scully hovering somewhere behind him.

“Do you want to go to the hospital?” she asks.

He turns and finds her picking up the trash left behind by the medics.

“I’ll get that,” he says softly. “It’s late, you need to rest.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” she says. It’s not an accusation, which he is grateful for.

“I probably ought to, just to make sure she’s alright,” he answers with a shrug.

“I think you should,” she says, a yawn eating the last of her words. The bed creaks softly when she sinks onto the edge of it. “Whatever happened here, we need to know what it was.”

“You’re right,” he says, watching her settle onto her side. He reaches out and lets his finger tips weave through her hair. “Try to rest, okay?”

“Hmm, I don’t know if the little interloper is going to let me,” she says, her voice becoming quiet and mumbly.

He finds himself suddenly overcome, the notion that a bee sting could have taken everything away makes his gut churn.

The door closes with a gentle snick and her eyes fall shut simultaneously. She didn’t think she’d be able to rest, especially with the baby performing some sort of interpretative dance against her bladder. But sleep comes and pulls her into the undertow. She’s glad for it, ready to stop the film loop of Diana Fowley twitching and gasping on her bed.

She feels the soft wave wash over her, pulling her down, down, down. Until it isn’t so soft anymore, it is pushing, bearing down on her belly. She gasps, realizing that it is not a wave, it’s a contraction. She fights her way up, up, up, back to the surface, back to the light. But when she opens her eyes, she’s not in the hotel bed anymore. The room is too bright, too sterile. She tries to move, but is unable to will her dead limbs to do anything.

“She’s awake,” a voice says.

“Help,” she chokes as the contraction grows tighter and tighter.

“We can give you something for the pain,” the voice says.

“It’s too soon,” she gasps.

“On the contrary, right on time, I’d say,” the voice replies.

She looks down and her belly is distended far beyond what it was just an hour ago. She looks full term. Beyond full term. The panic rises as the contraction fades and she looks frantically around the room for the source of the voice. She can’t see anyone, just vast, dark corners, like someone has created a delivery room in the middle of a warehouse.

“Dana? Are you ready to push?” a kinder voice asks.

Seemingly out of nowhere, she sees familiar blue eyes, paper thin skin crinkled around them.

“Dr. Kurtzweil?” she breathes out.

“It’s going to be okay,” he says softly. “Just push with the next contraction.”

The pain is building again. She can feel the solid mass of the baby moving down into the slip-sliding bones of her pelvis, there is no way she can survive this kind of white hot pain. Screw how many millennia women have been birthing babies, this isn’t going to work. No way.

“Help me, please,” she begins to sob.

“You’re doing just fine. Your baby is fine, you can do this,” he soothes as he slips into a paper gown.

“I…” she groans, “I need Mulder. Where’s Mulder?”

“He’s not here,” another voice says. A woman this time. Recognition lands like an arrow dead center.

Diana.

“Push through the pain, Dana. That’s the only way,” Kurtzweil says.

“I can’t.” It comes out like a harsh whisper, the grinding pain stealing her breath.

Diana is approaching out of the darkness, slowly. She moves like a cat, measured liquid steps. Whether out of malevolence or indifference, her face is stoic and stern. She’s not here to aid or comfort. When a predator hears screaming, it comes running, but not to help. 

“Why are you doing this?” she cries, looking between the two of them desperately.

“They use all of us, Dana,” Diana says, almost sadly.

“Help me, please help me!” she cries out.

“It’s going to be okay,” Kurtzweil says again. “Just push.”

“Cut it out if she won’t cooperate,” the first voice says from somewhere deep in the shadows.

She draws in a breath to scream, but she can’t, nor can she force her voice to comply. Terror is choking the air right out of her.

Help me, help me, help me…

A litany of prayers flitting like ashes into the heavens.

“Scully?”

She looks around in the darkness, but there’s no sign of him. She knows it was his voice.

“Mulder?”

“Scully, look at me,” he says.

“Where are you?” she asks frantically.

“I’m right here, it’s all right,” he says.

She can’t see him, only Kurtzweil and Diana, staring at her expectantly. She begins to sob again, a hopelessness settling over her like a dense fog.

“Scully, open your eyes. I’m right here,” he croons.

She blinks and finds him looking down at her. The only light is coming through the large hotel windows.

“Oh God,” she cries as she reaches for him. “They were trying to take it.”

“No one is going to take anything,” he says as he wraps his arms around her.

Her heart is thumping like a jackhammer and the baby is rolling and kicking in response. The adrenaline kicks in and she is suddenly struggling to keep control.

“Sh-he was th-there. She wa-was helping th-them,” she chokes as she clings to him.

“Who was?” he asks.

“D-diana. Diana w-was th-there.”

“She’s not going to hurt you. No one is going to hurt you or the baby,” he says, pulling her closer.

“She can’t come back. You can’t talk to her anymore,” she says, feeling more steady all of a sudden.

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” he says softly. “She wasn’t at the hospital.”

She pulls back and looks at him, as if a deeper explanation might be somewhere in his face.

“Maybe they took her to a different one,” she suggests with a sniffle. Had she been crying?

“I’ve spent the last four hours checking with every hospital in the metro, she’s not at any of them.”

“Four hours?” she asks, blinking blearily as she looks around the room. A shiver chases down her spine and her hands still feel numb. “I gotta go, I have to get back to the morgue.”

“Hey, hey, slow down,” he says, gripping her by the shoulders. “We need to get the hell out of here,” he says.

“I can’t just leave, Mulder,” she says.

“I think that’s exactly what we need to do, as soon as possible.”

“Why?”

“What you found, what I saw last night and what happened to Diana is all connected,” he says sternly. “The sooner we get the evidence out of here and someplace safe, the better.”

“If I go AWOL on this, it’s going to look suspicious. You take the slides and go back to DC.”

She stands and wavers, the aftereffects of the dream still making her shaky. He quietly steadies her.

“Diana was hauled out of your hotel room, it already looks suspicious. They have to know that we know something. Besides…” he trails off.

“Besides what?”

“I don’t want to leave you,” he says simply.

“What if she was showing you exactly what they want you to see? You’ve been wary of her from the start,” she reasons.

“All the more reason for us to go,” he pleads. “Pull the ailing pregnant lady card and let’s get out of here.”

“What aren’t you telling me?” she asks cautiously.

“Nothing, let’s just go, okay?” he pleads.

She deflates a little, the tight muscles in her neck releasing by a small fraction. There’s more, she knows, there’s always more.

“Okay, let’s go,” she acquiesces.

What aren’t you telling me?

There’s a lot he hasn’t told her. That the origins of all this madness are connected not just to the grand, capital “C” Conspiracy, but to a coordinated alien invasion. He’s not even sure he believes that part himself.

Oh, and I might be a little psychic too, so there’s that.

He draws in a deep breath and pushes that particular thought down. Diana pulled down the portrait of his self-image and took a Sharpie marker to it.

“You really didn’t think that those intuitive leaps of yours were just your top notch profiling skills, did you? You see what you do because you’ve got a gift.”

Getting into a killer’s head was one thing, poking around in there because of a psychic connection, that’s another thing. He flashes on John Lee Roche and squeezes his eyes shut. It couldn’t be true, could it?

She’s fast asleep against his shoulder and all he can think about is shielding her, her and this baby, from all of this madness.

When they land, she is slow to rise, wincing softly and pressing her palms into the small of her back.

“Had enough fun for one day?” he asks as the head into the jetway.

“For a one year,” she counters, her voice cottony with sleep as she fumbles in her pocket for her ringing phone. “Hello?…Oh no, is everyone alright?…Uh-huh, of course…  
Thank you.”

A creeping panic tightens his stomach.

“What’s up?” he asks, keeping a false levity in his voice.

“There was a fire at my apartment building,” she says as they enter the constant movement and chatter of the terminal.

He stops cold, mouth bobbing. She’s still walking ahead of him.The noise turns to a hollow emptiness, like a wind tunnel. The bustle around him becomes a blur and all he can see in perfect focus is her.

“It’s not a big deal, just some smoke damage. He just needed permission to go in and check my apartment.” She realizes that she’s left him behind and turns around, eyebrow arched.

“What is it?” she asks.

There’s a lot he hasn’t told her.


	18. Chapter 18

There are times when things are crystal clear, when everything makes perfect sense. He can distinctly remember feeling like he understood his place in the world, but that was a long time ago. Now, he feels like he’s on the road not taken in some strange way, lost in Frost’s yellow wood, meandering about, distracted by sounds, by the beauty and the dark places. Sometimes she’s right there next to him and others, he’s certain he’s lost her.

These last few months, he’s been wandering. Lost as he can be, distracted by Diana, by little white pills, by memories and nightmares when all along, the thing he needed to pay attention to, to keep his eyes wide open for, was her. Always her.

She’s asleep on the couch, she was so drained by the time she checked her apartment and got back to his place that she curled up and drifted off in the space of just a few minutes. He’d read in one of the books that the overwhelming exhaustion is normal, that he shouldn’t worry. But he still does. It can’t be helped.

He’s spent the last couple hours cleaning up the bedroom, making space for her. It dawns on him as he hauls out boxes of magazines and clippings that it’s the first time he’s done something like this for her. It wasn’t so long ago that they were discussing why she didn’t have a desk. She still doesn’t have a desk. She takes up so much of his heart, so many of his thoughts, but she can’t live in either of those places. He’s determined to change that, starting right now.

He may be a lost man, but one thing he’s sees clearly is her and if he can see her, he can find his way.

“Hm, what time is it?” she sighs, her voice sleepy.

“Almost five,” he says.

The late afternoon sun is blazing orange and casting his whole living room in gold. It makes her hair look like fire.

“Hungry?” he asks as he sits on the coffee table across from her.

“Starving,” she says with a little smile.

“Good,” he says, pleasantly surprised. He is often asking her to eat, hoping she can tolerate whatever he can present to her.

“Let’s get out of here, go get some pizza,” she suggests, smoothing down her mussed hair.

“Pizza? Feeling adventurous?” he asks.

“Maybe,” she says, a little smirk chasing the end of the word.

They walk side by side and she let’s him take her hand. It’s so big, his fingers long and lanky, wrapping around hers. They look like normal people, she thinks to herself.

“Let’s go here instead,” she says, pulling him toward the neighborhood deli.

“I thought you wanted pizza,” he says.

“A reuben sounds better,” she says, tugging him along.

“Whatever you say,” he concedes.

They wander into the bustling deli, the smell of fresh bread wafting through the air. She wishes she could enjoy it. But there are literally no strong smells that don’t hit her the wrong way. She swallows hard and squeezes his hand.

“I’m gonna go find a table, will you order please?” she asks.

He nods, a little worry line forming between his eyebrows. She hustles to the back of the house and finds a little round table, quickly arranging the chairs side by side and both of them against the wall and facing the door. She’s not about to let anyone get the jump on them. No matter how much misdirection she uses, she is still anxious. She finds herself thinking of wiretaps, hidden bugs, dark men with dark intentions listening in on their discussions, their fights, their lovemaking. A shudder runs down her spine as she searches the faces in the deli, looking for…anything really. Anyone too interested in them, anyone watching. She muses that this must be what the Lone Gunmen feel like most of the time.

“Here you go,” Mulder says as he slides a red plastic basket lined with wax paper in front of her. The sandwich, in concept, seemed like a good idea, but looking at it now, she knows it isn’t going to happen.

“Not hungry anymore?” he asks, clearly taking in her reaction.

“No, not really,” she says with a little disappointment. “That’s not why I wanted to come here anyway.”

“What else did you have in mind at a deli? Ballroom dancing?”

She shifts in the seat and swallows hard.

“I called the Gunmen, that day before you went to see them.”

He pauses mid-bite, his eyes comically wide, and swallows. “And?”

“I told them to switch out the pills, to give you a placebo.”

He looks confused at first and nods. “You didn’t trust me.”

“No. I didn’t.”

He nods again and his expression is somewhat unreadable.

“So getting my memories back has been…”

“A function of recovering from an injury and getting all the drugs out of your system,” she finishes. “You got better on your own.”

“Not entirely on my own,” he says, reaching for her hand. She lets him. She wants it. Screw who might be watching.

“Your turn,” she says.

“My turn?” he asks.

“I kept something from you and now I’m telling you the truth. Your turn.”

He shifts in the creaky wooden chair, straightening his back.

“What makes you think I’m keeping something from you?”

“Whatever this is, whatever you and I are trying to be, won’t work if we can’t trust one another,” she says. “You aren’t just you and I’m not just me.”

She levels a long gaze at him, a clear don’t fuck this up look. He seems to get the hint.

“The truth is, I don’t know what the truth is,” he says. “Diana spun two very different stories and I don’t know which one to believe, or if I believe either of them.”

“What did she say?”

“The pills, the ones that started…all of this. At first she said they were to discredit me, to drive you away.”

“And?”

“She said,” he pauses and stares at the red picnic patterned table cloth. “She said that the pills were given to me to enhance latent psychic ability. To help the men behind the conspiracy see if their plans will play out.”

“Do you think you’re psychic, Mulder?”

“A little psycho maybe,” he deflects.

“Mulder?” she presses.

“I didn’t think it could be true. I really didn’t. But I had a dream that something happened and then it did happen.”

“Could it have been a coincidence?” she asks, ever the rational one.

“I had a dream that there was a fire at your apartment building,” he says, and for once, he looks like to one who is going to be sick. “She said the nightmares were because they had plans to kill you because you were never supposed to get better.”

Their conversation in the Topeka coroner’s lounge flashes in her mind.

“What do you dream about now, Mulder?” she asks.

He squeezes her hand and smiles a little. “Us, I dream about us. I dream about our baby…our daughter, who looks just like you.”

“Then I hope it is true,” she says softly.

The summer evenings last forever and ever. As they walk back to his apartment, he watches her squint against the setting sun and press a hand over her brow to shield her eyes. He can hear the seagulls and waves from his dreams, smell the salt and sunscreen, the easy weight of Gracie on his shoulders.

“I’m glad we talked, that we got things out in the open. I don’t like keeping anything from you,” he says as he takes her free hand.

“Mulder?” she says cautiously, squinting harder.

“What?”

She stops cold and points ahead of them.

“Aren’t we the happy little family?” the Cancer Man asks as he puffs a halo of smoke into the air.

Mulder doesn’t even think before putting his body between Scully and human ashtray in front of them.

“Feeling protective? Paternal instincts kicking in?” he asks.

“What the hell do you want?” Mulder very nearly hisses.

“You saw something in Dallas, took something that wasn’t yours to take. I’ve come to retrieve it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says. Scully is in the perfect spot to get a hold of his weapon.

“Diana was quick to turn on you, given the right motivation,” he says.

“She’s alive?” Mulder asks.

“Mostly,” he says, taking a long drag from his cigarette. “The slides. I want the slides Agent Scully took from the morgue.”

He hears, or rather feels her gasp. He would love nothing more than to shove the barrel of his gun under this chain smoking bastard’s chin and be done with all of it.

“I’m willing to offer something in return,” he says, a smug little smile tugging at the sagging skin at the corner of his mouth. “Protection for Agent Scully, for your child.”

“What does she need protection from?”

“Dangerous men, ones who have no concern about ending a life…or two,” he says, his voice thick with foreboding.

“C’mon, Scully,” he says, reaching for her hand. “Let’s go.”

She clutches to him desperately as they slowly retreat down the sidewalk, never turning their back on the Cancer Man.

“The offer has an expiration date,” he warns, a menacing smile curling underneath the smoke. “…more like a due date? I’ll be in touch.”


	19. Chapter 19

HEGEL PLACE  
WASHINGTON, DC

“I can’t believe you’re even considering this,” she says, arms crossed defensively.

“I can’t believe you’re not,” he says as arranges the slides into a case.

“Mulder, wait,” she says firmly. “Are we even going to talk about this?” she asks.

“What’s there to talk about, Scully?” he says as he slips a lid over the top.

“What’s there to talk about?” she echoes, incredulous that she would even have to ask. “He’s lying Mulder, saying whatever he has to to get what he wants.”

He stops, looking at her head on for the first time since they got back to his apartment. His eyes dart, gray green flashes searching her face.

“None of this matters if I don’t have you. Do you understand that?”

“If you do this and what Diana said is true…” she draws in a long, shaky breath, tears brimming. “We can’t let the whole world die for a little temporary bliss.”

He sees her internal struggle, the way she has taken up his mantle and carried it just as steadfastly as he. He reaches out and pulls her into his arms, pressing her flush against the strong planes of his chest. His heart feels like a bass drum against her cheek.

“We’ll find another way, you and I. But right now, you, you and this baby are the only ones I care about.”

His words vibrate through her. 

Another way. Another way. Another way.

“Promise me, Mulder,” she whispers against his heather gray t-shirt. “We talk before anything is done.”

“Okay,” he says as he palms the back of her head, her hair slipping through his fingers. “Okay, I promise. I promise you.”

Weeks pass without a word from Old Smokey, but the silence is anything but easy. The tension and Scully’s belly both seem to grow exponentially. He is a satellite, circling her at all times, following, trailing, sending silent signals through the air and hoping they are not lost.

GEORGETOWN  
WASHINGTON, DC

He paces her living room, phone to his ear. His footfalls are muffled by the carpet. He stays in motion, always in motion.

“No, that won’t be possible,” he says simply. “Agent Scully is pregnant and too close to her due date to fly.”

She cocks her head to one side, slightly miffed that he is speaking for her without so much as a sideways glance.

“Yes, I can testify.”

The baby stretches and rolls, movement that feels like too much for her small frame. Sometimes it steals her breath, makes her eyes water, startles her. The idea that she has another six weeks to go and that the baby is only going to get bigger, it scares her a little. She closes her eyes and breathes through the discomfort.

“You okay?” he asks as he sets the phone down.

She palms the swell of her belly and shakes her head. “I’m fine. Where is it I’m not going?”

“Topeka, the Seel case is finally going to trial.”

“Wow, I figured she’d plead out,” she says as she slowly lowers herself onto the couch.

The baby pushes a limb into her diaphragm and she has to arch her back and shift to be able to draw in even half of a breath.

“Going for not guilty by reason of insanity,” he says as he sits down next to her.

“I’m still okay to fly, you know,” she says, annoyance coloring her words.

“Maybe I’m not okay with it,” he says.

“It’s not for you to decide,” she says.

“Believe me, I know that,” he says, his eyes soft and pleading. “But you didn’t really want to schlep all the way to Topeka to testify on an airtight case, did you?”

Her shoulders drop and she sighs. When she thinks of spending hours in a rigid airline seat, her back preemptively tightens.

“Not especially, no.”

“So I’ll go, submit our case notes, and be back in 48 hours.”

2 DAYS LATER  
SHAWNEE COUNTY COURTHOUSE  
TOPEKA, KS

Summer is still clinging tight even though the calendar reads mid-September. His shirt is sticking to him under the wool of his jacket and the dense heat makes taking a deep breath feel like being underwater. 

He glances at his watch and sighs. He was meant to be on the stand first thing that morning, but there had been delays and now, nearing noon, he is tapping his toes against the white marble floors of the courthouse hallway.

A distant wail, something akin to an air raid siren begins to sound outside. No one seems to take notice, going about their business as if there is no sound at all. He stands, looking around for someone, anyone to react.

A kind faced woman pauses, seeming to sense his distress.

“It’s Monday,” she says simply.

He shakes his head. “I don’t know what that means.”

“The tornado sirens go off every Monday at noon, gotta make sure they’re working!”

He smiles and chuckles. “I thought the world was ending and no one noticed.”

“Agent Mulder?” a tentative voice calls.

He turns to find Ted and Noelle Seel. Ted’s suit is ill fitting, he looks thinner than the last time they saw one another. Noelle looks as bright eyed as ever in her yellow cotton dress. He extends a hand and greets the little girl with a smile.

“Hello Noelle. You’ve gotten taller I think,” he says.

“Really?” Noelle asks with a broad smile.

“Yes, definitely,” he says.

“Is Dana here?” she asks, looking about.

“No, Dana had to stay home in Washington,” he tells her as he hunches down a bit.

“But I wanted to see the baby,” Noelle says woefully.

He passes a surprised glance to Ted who shrugs a little.

“How did you know about Dana’s baby?” he asks.

“Did she have her yet?”

“No, not yet, the baby needs a few more weeks to grow, but it’ll be born soon.”

“I didn’t realize she was actually pregnant. She started mentioning Dana’s baby months ago, but I didn’t think much of it I guess,” Mr. Seel chimes in.

“She is, due in late October,” he says as he stands.

“Oh she’ll be borned before that,” Noelle says. “I keep hearing Dana say ‘it’s too soon.’”

He feels a chill in the thick heat of the hallway, his heart beginning to stutter and then pound.

“When did you hear that?” he asks.

“I dream it sometimes, she cries and says it’s too soon for the baby to come. But then she just comes anyway,” she says. “Babies do what they want.”

“I suppose they do,” he says, feeling a knot winding itself tight in his gut.

“I’m glad you’re all better,” Noelle says with a smile. “I told Dana you just needed your rest.”

“Was that all I needed?” he asks, trying not to let the dread seep out for everyone to see.

“Don’t worry,” Noelle says. “Dana and the baby will be fine. But you can’t stay here too long.”

GEORGETOWN  
WASHINGTON, DC

She managed to whittle away an entire day in the lab. Quantico had requested some extra coverage and she was happy to oblige. The elevator had been on the fritz in the Hoover and the prospect of negotiating all of those stairs was daunting at best. With Mulder in Topeka, there wasn’t much for her to do at the moment anyway. The reporting was all caught up and she hadn’t been in the field in a good long while. She thought that she was miss it, the thrill of a chase, the utter joy of closing out a tough case. But lately, all she really wants is to get to October and start her leave.

Exhaustion hangs around the edges of even the most simple tasks. Stopping, just stopping everything sounds so, so good.

She ambles to her apartment door, balancing a bag of groceries on what’s left of her hip as she fumbles for her key. The smell hits her and her gut immediately begins to churn. The nausea had come roaring back in the third trimester and it takes next to nothing to set her off.

The smell, she recognizes immediately as cigarette smoke. It smells like Saturday morning in her mother’s kitchen. Maggie used to smoke a cigarette and blow it out the window over the sink before she started breakfast. Of course, she associated it with other things now. Cold metal tables and even colder eyes staring at her paralyzed body. She swallows hard, pushing the fear down with the knot in her throat.

Since the fire, the landlord had strictly enforced the no smoking policy, she even heard that someone got evicted. She glances side to side, trying to suss out the source of it. She takes a deep breath at her door and sets the groceries down gently as she pulls her weapon from the holster at the small of her back.

Her hands do not shake, her breath does not quicken. If that bastard is in her living room, she’s going to unload her clip into his chest and walk away feeling light as a feather. She slides the key into the lock and simultaneously pushes off the safety on her .22. She shoulders the door open with one swift push and readies herself in a shooter’s stance so practiced that she can do it in her sleep. The doors whaps against the wall and begins to swing back as she enters.

She silently sweeps the room, pointing the barrel of her gun ahead of her like a beacon.

Nothing.

Nothing but the smell of hours old stale smoke.

She moves from room to room, quietly, efficiently, actions drilled into her so thoroughly as a trainee that she doesn’t even have the presence of mind to be scared. In every room, she is met only with silence, her things staring back at her. One of Mulder’s ties is hanging over the arm of a chair in her bedroom, his running shoes are tucked under the bed, his toothbrush is in the holder next to hers in the bathroom. It dawns on her that he actually lives there now. 

Clear the every room. Secure the location. Don’t get dead. 

The three commandments of her simulation instructor play over and over in her head as she reconciles herself to the fact that no one is there. She walks to the front door, closing it and locking it tight. She slides the safety back on her gun and re-holsters it.

She lets her eyes fall shut as she presses her back up against the door. The nausea roils up and she can barely get to the bathroom fast enough. Her knees hit the floor with a jarring crack. As she opens the lid, she sees a cigarette butt floating in the water.

Her hands shake, her breath quickens.

SHAWNEE COUNTY COURTHOUSE  
TOPEKA, KS

Mrs. Seel looks like she hasn’t seen the sun in months. Her skin is sallow and nearly transparent. Her hair hangs limply, heavy with oil and jailhouse dust. She doesn’t look up as he testifies about the night he and Scully saved her and Noelle’s lives.

“What brought you to Topeka in the first place, Agent Mulder?” her attorney asks.

Ah, that old chestnut. Attorneys love to trot out his work like a macabre sideshow to invalidate his testimony.

Her lawyer is a broad shouldered man with a neat gray goatee and glasses perched on the end of his bulbous nose. He seems like the type who would have several animal heads mounted in his office. A salt of the earth kind of guy. One who certainly would scoff at government dollars being spent on paranormal investigations.

There is sudden long, low groan from the defense table.

“He KNOWS!” Lydia Seel howls. “He’s with THEM!”

The gavel slaps angrily, the sound echoing through the room. Feet shuffle, voices murmur. Lydia’s face has gone ruddy red and there is a vein throbbing on her forehead as she seethes through clenched teeth.

“The world is ending and none of you are even paying attention!” she screams.

“Mr. Johnston, please get your client under control,” the judge barks.

“You!” she screams, pointing an angry finger at Mulder. “You know what they did to Noelle!”

The gavel smacks down again and again and again. “Order! Order! Order!”

The courtroom buzz and disarray reaches a fever pitch as the bailiff clutches onto a flailing Lydia Seel.

“Remove the defendant! Counsel, in my chambers right now!” the judge hollers.

GEORGETOWN  
WASHINGTON, DC

Her ribs are achy, her throat raw. She managed to swallow back her anti-nausea pills and crawl into bed. When the phone starts ringing, her first instinct is to ignore and go the hell to sleep. But Mulder will worry if she doesn’t answer and then he’ll just keep calling or worse, call her mother and send her over.

“Hey,” she answers, her voice rough.

“Oh no,” he says. “Have you been sick?”

“Yeah,” she croaks.

“Do you need to go to the ER?” he asks.

“No, I’m okay. My meds stayed down.”

“Have you eaten anything yet?” he asks.

She burrows deeper into the blankets, curling up as much as her belly will allow.

“Hmm, not yet. Maybe in a couple hours. How’s it going there? Are you flying back tomorrow?”

“It was kind of wild, actually. Lydia Seel had a massive outburst in court and I heard she suffered a seizure in her holding cell. They may postpone the rest of the trial.”

“A seizure? Due to what?” she asks.

“I don’t know, but I did get a look at some of the bloodwork from the night we pulled her out of the garage.”

“And?”

“And it looks like the same stuff that was in my blood when I went demolition derby on my rental car,” he says. “When she was asked what it was, she said that it was Noelle’s medicine.”

“Noelle’s? Why would a little girl be taking something like that? And who on earth was prescribing it?”

“Lydia’s statement isn’t clear on that, just that it was for Noelle.”

“What about Noelle’s bloodwork from that night? Does it show the same thing?”

“It does, but only in trace amounts. Maybe she stopped giving it to her. Maybe she realized what it really was.”

“Are you still subscribing to the theory that it’s meant to enhance psychic ability?” she asks, although she already knows the answer.

“At the moment, it seems to fit,” he says. He pauses a long moment. “Are you okay? Besides the nausea I mean. Is everything alright?”

“I’m okay, tired. But it looks like we had a visitor while I was at work,” she says. “I found a cigarette butt in the toilet when I got home.”

She realizes that telling him this while he’s half a continent away may not be the most prudent thing to do and she can practically hear the fuse sizzling on the other end of the line.

“He took the slides,” she adds, trying to keep the nerves out of her voice.

“I want you to go to your mother’s house,” he says simply.

“I’m not going to do that, Mulder. He got what he came for. If he was going to do something to me, I probably wouldn’t be talking to you right now, would I?” she reasons.

“That’s very comforting,” he grouses.

“I’m armed. Nothing is going to happen. Not tonight anyway,” she says. “He left it there to scare me. I’m not scared.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” he says. “Maybe take the day off and stay in?” he requests.

“I’ve got a check up in the morning,” she reminds him.

“Right, I forgot. I’m sorry,” he says.

“S’okay,” she says, barely stifling a yawn.

“Try to eat something before you go to sleep, okay?” he asks.

“I’ll try,” she sighs.

“Hey,” he says softly.

“Yeah?”

“I love you, Scully.”

She sighs softly and smiles. Much as she avoids sentimentality, his naked adoration has an unexpected way of softening her.

“I love you, too,” she says.

WOMEN’S HEALTHCARE ASSOCIATES

She likes her doctor, a lot. Dr. Hemenway’s got a good head on her shoulders and unlike most other doctors, doesn’t talk to her like she’s an idiot.  
“Dana?” she asks as she sweeps into the room. “You look awful,” she says simply.

“I didn’t sleep much,” she admits. 

She caught only a brief glimpse of herself in the mirror on the way out, but even when standing still, she feels like a blur. Her hair is wild and pulled up into a loose ponytail. She didn’t bother with makeup, not even a sweep of chapstick for her cracked lips. Everything just felt like entirely too much work.

“Have you been vomiting?” she asks as she applies a blood pressure cuff.

“Not since last night,” she says softly. The bones in her skull feel like shifting tectonic plates if she raises her voice above a gravelly whisper.

“BP is pretty low,” she remarks. “Open,” she requests as she clicks the end of her pen light.

She complies, sticking out her tongue and closing her eyes.

“Bone dry,” Dr. Hemenway says. “Okay, let’s check on little one and then you’re going over to the hospital,” she says.

“What? Why?”

“You’re dehydrated, you need fluids and rest. I’m putting in the order, go straight up to L&D. The OB on call will get you started and I’ll be in later to check on you.”

She grimaces as she lays back and pulls up her shirt. Dr. Hemenway palpates her belly and pulls out a measuring tape.

“Right on target,” she remarks.

She works the doppler probe over a spot just to the right of her belly button, eliciting the mechanical whoosh whoosh of the baby’s heartbeat.

“Is Fox in the waiting room?” she asks.

“No, he had to go testify on a case. He’ll be back in a few hours.”

“Maybe you should take a cab,” she suggests.

“You think I’m that bad off?”

“I think if the wind blows the right way you could hit the deck,” she says as she wipes the gel off of her belly and offers her hand.

She grunts softly as she gets upright again, a little headrush chasing her as she settles herself.

“I’ll call a cab. Straight over to GW,” she says with an authoritative wag of her finger. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

The ride is a short one and she shuffles out of the elevator and into the Labor and Delivery wing less than 20 minutes after leaving the doctor’s office.

“Ms. Scully?” a cheery nurse pushing a wheelchair greets.

She nods, although it makes her head hurt.

“I really don’t need that,” she says.

“You might as well enjoy the ride, right?” she says.

She lets out a mirthless chuckle and takes a seat.

“I’m Casey,” the nurse says as she pushes the wheelchair down the hall. “Dr. Kurtzweil will be in shortly to check on you.”

“Kurtzweil?”


	20. Chapter 20

GEORGETOWN  
WASHINGTON, DC  
5:30 PM

He pushes the door open with his hip as he rifles through the mail. He gives each letter a cursory inspection before dropping them all in the appointed wicker basket by the door.

“Hey Scully!” he calls as he closes the door behind him and begins to shrug out of his jacket. “You’re never going to guess what happened. Lydia Seel died this morning. COD is still undetermined but I’m going to push to have the body sent here so you can do the autopsy,” he says as he toes out of his shoes.   
He heads to the kitchen and opens the fridge, rummaging about for something that didn’t come from the ground. Her resistance to processed food is admirable, but he could really go for bologna sandwich on white bread, preferably with a square of rubbery yellow cheese and Miracle Whip. Of course, none of those things are in this particular refrigerator, so he settles for some pasta salad and a beer. 

“Scully?” he calls as he digs in, loosening his tie and releasing his top button. “Did you hear me?”

His heart quickens when he is met with only silence. He abandons the food and begins moving cautiously from room to room. He suspects she could be buried deep in the blankets, snoozing off a long day at Quantico. Or she could be in the tub, her puffy ankles propped up on the edge. She might even be in the baby’s room putting together one of the still-boxed items of furniture. It takes him just a few moments to realize she is none of those places. 

Okay, she’s not home. Where else would she be?

He calls the office, no answer.

His heart is thudding so hard he can feel it in his back. 

He calls her cell phone, no answer. 

Sweat is beading at his temples. 

He calls her mother, who answers, but hasn’t seen Dana all day. 

He keeps his voice light, he doesn’t want to scare her. 

“Is everything alright, Fox?” she asks nervously.

“I’m sure she’s just out running errands,” he says. 

He calls her doctor’s office and finally seems to be getting somewhere.

“Dr. Hemenway sent her over to GW this morning for dehydration. She should’ve been released by now, though,” a puzzled nurse tells him. 

“Can I speak to Dr. Hemenway?” he asks.

“She’s actually at GW right now doing a C-section. Maybe you should just head over there and I’ll tell her you’re on the way.” 

 

A sharp and biting jab to her belly. A hard, angry cramp. She cries out but no one seems to be listening. 

“It’s very important that you don’t move, dear,” the doctor says.

“Doctor” seems like a generous word at the moment. 

As best she can figure, he injected her IV line with a sedative because she fell asleep in her room and woke up under the blinding glare of the OR lights. She can’t even make out faces and the voices around her are garbled, like they’re underwater.

There is a blinding pressure builds and builds and she tries to steady her breathing before it overtakes her. Suddenly a warm hand is wrapped around hers.

“It’s okay, Dana. It’s almost over,” she says. 

She squints and blinks. The overhead lights halo her raven hair and make her dark eyes look almost black. 

“I thought...we thought you were dead,” she gasps. 

Diana looks at her mournfully as she reaches down and smoothes her hair away from her forehead. 

“Sometimes I wish I was,” she says, her voice choked. 

“She must hold still,” Kurtzweil says. 

“Breathe through it, Dana,” Diana says as she draws a long breath in through her nose and out through her mouth. 

“Why are you doing this?” she sobs as she tries to mimic Diana’s breathing. 

“This is it. They’ll leave you alone now. They’ve got what they want,” Diana says, her voice strangely soothing. “Just breathe Dana.” She looks up, a worry line between her sharp eyebrows. “Can’t you give her something else? Why do you have to hurt her like this?”

The tears streak down her cheeks and she wills her body to be still, to protect the baby and just be still. It’s so hard. It hurts so much. 

They must have given her “something” as Diana requested. She slips, slides, slows and falls under. 

 

He is stifling the utter panic that brought him here as the elevator doors open. The lobby of Labor and Delivery is bright, painted with Easter colors and adorned with pictures of cherubic babies and ethereal-looking mothers. He’s seen the videos at birthing class and knows that new mothers don’t look like magazine covers and new babies kind of look like lizards. But he can appreciate the aesthetic they’re trying to project.

“I’m looking for Dana Scully?” he says as he approaches the desk. 

Two nurses in peach colored scrubs smile up at him. “Sure thing! Are you dad to be?” one of them asks.

You’re goddamn right I am, he thinks. “Y-yes. Can you tell me where she is?” he asks.

“Fox?” a voice calls. 

Dr. Hemenway approaches, her face creased with worry. 

“Where is she?” he asks again.

“She’s in recovery right now. It’s going to be a while before you can see her.”

His knees wobble and stars dart across his field of vision.

“What the hell would she be in recovery for?” he nearly shouts. 

“Fox, listen to me. She’s okay, the baby is okay. We’re still trying to figure out exactly what happened.”

“I’m sorry?” he says. He’s not sorry, he’s enraged. 

“It looks like there was some kind of miscommunication. Another doctor here performed what’s called cordocentesis on Dana. It’s when we go in through the abdomen and withdraw a small amount of blood from the umbilical cord,” she explains, keeping her tone low and even. 

“Why would that even be necessary?” he asks, grinding his molars together. 

“For Dana, it’s not. It’s rarely used and only when we have inconclusive genetic results by other means of testing.”

“So who did this to her?” he asks, voice climbing, arms flailing. 

“Like I said, we’re still trying to figure out exactly what happened.”

“I need to see her,” he says. 

Dread, rage, guilt are all chasing in mad circle like a current, completing a circuit that brings tears to his eyes, sends his muscles twitching, his voice quavering. Hemenway seems to sense that he is falling apart.

“Okay, okay,” she says as she reaches out and grips his forearm. “I’ll take you to her.”

The recovery room is stark white and so is she. She is asleep. No, not asleep, unconscious. There’s a difference. 

They’ve got her on oxygen and there are monitor wires snaking out of the collar of her gown. 

Dr. Hemenway pulls a chair up next to the bed and guides him to it. 

“There’s a risk of hemorrhage and pre-term labor, but we’re monitoring her very closely. We’re keeping her sedated for the moment,” she says as she pulls back the blanket and shows him the monitors strapped to her belly. “This one records any contractions she may have,” she says as she points to a disk on the upper swell. “And this one monitors baby’s heartbeat.”

Her belly looks like a scoop of vanilla ice cream with a garish purple bruise that resembles blueberry sauce dotted just to the right of her belly button. He stares, unable to blink away the image of a giant needle boring into her. 

“Listen,” Hemenway says as she adjusts a knob on one of the screens. 

The sound of the baby’s heartbeat is all around him, taking up all the space in the room. Something so small, he thinks to himself. So, so small. 

He gently reaches out and scoops up Scully’s hand. 

“Dr. Hemenway, we’re going to need to get the FBI involved in this,” he says in a sotto voice.

“Fox, hospital administration is definitely going to be looking into it,” Hemenway assures him.

“And I’m sure they’ll have no problem cooperating with the FBI. A crime was committed. Dana Scully is a federal employee: she’s been assaulted. There will be an investigation.”

Scully doesn’t stir. 

Consciousness comes slowly, like a sunrise. Sensations stream in, pushing in where shadows resided. Light casts over the hills and valleys of her body and the things that were sleeping awaken. The little hairs on her arms tighten and stand, like flowers looking for the intense corona of the sun. The pores on her cheeks feel like they are coming open, breathing out nocturnal carbon rich air and letting in humid oxygen. And like the sunrise, consciousness warms her. She senses the light behind her fallen eyelids, yellow, bright. Too bright.

She feels a hand on hers. Warm. 

With the dawn, little things begin to move, flitting in lush green grass, hopping hither and yon. Birds pluck at the ground, twittering about, calling to one another in steady chirps. She is under a blanket of loamy earth and dense grass. Warm and protected and safe.   
Her little creature is moving about as well, she thinks of a bunny deep inside a burrow, sweet and small but with powerful legs. A foot? A knee? Something presses and rolls just under her ribs and she groans. 

Not a bunny. A baby. Her baby. 

Consciousness came slowly. But awareness comes swiftly, like a stinging slap across her cheekbone. She startles, jolts and gasps as her eyes snap open.   
The warm grass is gone and she realizes that she wasn’t covered in earth, but in warming blankets, the kind they have in the recovery room after an operation. The chirping isn’t that of birds, but monitors. She knows which is which based on sound alone. The one measuring her heart rate is frantic, the beeps much too close together. The one measuring the baby’s heart is catching all of the movements as well, it sounds like someone tapping erratically on a microphone. 

He is cupping her face, making shushing, soothing sounds. 

The cramp rolls through her like an earthquake, rumbling and constant, building and building until the mountain of her belly juts up tight and hard.   
Her eyes slam shut again and she clamors for him, looking for him to steady her somehow, keep her from floating off of the bed. 

“It’s too soon,” she chokes. 

“It’s okay. You’re okay,” he tells her as he wraps around her.

His arms span her back, his chin atop the crown of her head, her forehead pressed against the sharp crest of his collarbone. 

“Oooooooooh god,” she groans.

The ache plateaus and tapers off and the breath falls into her chest like mud falling into a sinkhole. She didn’t realize how tightly she’d had a hold on him until she let’s go, her knuckles stiff from clutching at him. 

“Dr. Hemenway said you could contract for a while,” he says as he pushes her hair back from her face. “But it’ll stop. The baby isn’t coming yet.”

She isn’t sure who he’s trying to convince at that moment. Because it feels like the baby is coming imminently, trying to escape because it knows, somehow, that she can’t protect it, can’t even protect herself. It feels heavy, slippery against her pubic bone. 

“They’re going to monitor you overnight,” he says softly. “And if things settle down, we’ll go home tomorrow.”

He raising the bed so she can sit up a bit, rearranging pillows, tucking blankets around her.

“She was there,” she says, trying to slow her breathing, her heart.“She was really there, I didn’t dream it.”

“I know. I saw the security footage. She looked right at the camera. She wanted us to see.”

She glances at the window. It was morning when she came here, bright light and cloudless blue skies. But it's gone now. She’s lost a whole day, the world has gone black and gray outside. The room is only dimly lit, a strip of fluorescent lighting on the wall over her bed.

“She was,” she closes her eyes, trying to snatch memories like pulling wet paper out of the water before the words disappear. “She was trying to comfort me. She said that they had what they wanted now.”

“Whether they do or they don’t,” he says as he sits down next to her. “I’m not letting anything happen to you. Not ever again.”

2 WEEKS LATER  
GEORGETOWN

Sleep is hard to come by these days. She’s got insomnia from the hormones, up for two or three hours at a stretch during the night. He’s found her wandering about, shifting her weight from foot to foot, trying to get the baby to move into a better position so she can rest. She stands by the windows and watches the sleeping world and he sits, wherever she is and watches her. When she finally can sleep, it’s never for long, leg cramps hit and jerk her into consciousness like pulling the ripcord on a parachute. She can barely breathe let alone tell him what’s wrong. He digs his thumbs into the rock hard muscle of her calf until it passes. She wipes tears from her eyes and thanks him as she tries to catch her breath. It’s nothing, he’s told her. He’d do anything for her. If it’s not the insomnia or the leg cramps, she has to pee, or she has heartburn, or the baby is moving too much, or her sciatic nerve is flaring and causing her to jerk like she’s been electrocuted. 

She’s been sleeping now for almost four hours, the morning turning to afternoon. He is grateful that she has been so peaceful for so long. She had been up and down all night, unable to get comfortable, her back tight and achey. He wondered if she might be in early labor, but she denied it.

It seems now that she was right, as she often is. 

She breathes softly, drawing in a long breath and yawning before opening her eyes. She looks around without moving, seeming to try and acclimate herself. She catches him watching her and smiles a little.

“How long was I out?” she asks groggily. 

“Doesn’t matter,” he says. “Did it feel like enough?”

“For now,” she sighs at the tail end of another yawn.

“Hungry?” he asks as he gets up.

“Not really,” she says as she begins pulling at the pillows all around her, one between her knees, one flattened under her belly, one at the small of her back.

Sitting up is work, but she manages. 

He wonders if she notices that he can’t stop staring at her. There’s very little that escapes her notice. 

“What?” she asks softly.

“Nothing,” he says, a little shy that he was caught in the act. 

“Seriously, what?”

Her hair is wavy and just a little wild, the creases from the pillow are imprinted on her face, her eyes are puffy and red-rimmed. He reaches out and brushes his thumb over the skin of her cheekbone.

“I was just thinking that you’ve never been more beautiful,” he says.

She chuckles at that and looks down at herself. 

“I look like an upended Beetle,” she says with a mirthless laugh.

“Look, I know it’s cheesy,” he begins to explain. “But I just...I can’t help it. I look at you, like this,” he says, his hand coming to rest against taut skin of her abdomen. “I dunno Scully, it’s got me feeling some kinda way.”

“Some kinda way, huh?” she asks with a little grin.

“Yeah,” he says as he leans in kisses her. He swipes his tongue against her bottom lip experimentally. After what happened, they’ve not attempted anything in bed other than a solid night’s sleep.

She needs little encouragement, one hand coming up to his jaw, the other balling up the fabric of his shirt.

“Is this okay?” he asks against her mouth and praying that the answer is “yes.”

She nods as she lets go of him and starts working the buttons of her satin pajama shirt. 

Jesus, he could just die right there and feel like he’d done alright in this life. There’s a spot atop her belly, a “V” of skin that resides between her swollen, heavy breasts, he wants to live out his days in that spot. He can feel her breathing and hear her heart and make out the morse code signals their daughter sends.   
They’ve never verified that it’s a girl, but he doesn’t need to. He knows. 

The phone trills on the nightstand and he groans with utter disappointment as he snatches it up and answers. She offers a sad little smile and combs her fingers through his hair. 

“Mulder,” he says, somewhere between a growl and an actual greeting. 

“Agent mulder, it’s Ted Seel. Do you have a moment?”

 

5th AVENUE  
NEW YORK CITY, NY

Diana Fowley shifts nervously in the brown leather captains chair. The room is full of men old enough to be her father, all of them grim-faced. How the hell did I end up here, she wonders.

“You have news?” the large, soft voiced man asks.

“I do,” he says as he takes a long draw from his cigarette and sits. “The samples we were able to procure were not what we hoped.”

“How is that possible?” a cutting voice asks. “The alterations to Agent Scully’s DNA all but guarantee immunity.”

“Not to mention Mulder’s exposure to the Tunguska vaccine,” another voice chimes in.

They all seem to shift simultaneously, moving nervously, navy and gray and black suits with non-descript craggy faces, shrouded in shadows. 

“This was supposed to be our salvation,” the well manicured Englishman says. 

“The vaccine works,” Cancer Man reminds them. “Diana owes her life to it.”

She smiles nervously at the mention of her name and her eyes dart to the floor. 

“It’s enough to save the infected, yes. But it won’t kill them, won’t stop their plans,” the Englishman counters. 

“The child’s blood holds no weapon. She’s not a resource for us,” Diana answers, wondering if any of them can tell that she’s lying.

“Was there anything, anything at all of value?”

“I'm told she has the same genetic markers for psychic ability as her parents, nothing more,” the CIgarette Smoking Man answers as he stubs out the cigarette in a heavy glass ashtray.

“And Kurtzweil?” the Englishman asks. 

“He’s been dealt with,” the Cigarette Smoking Man says, the finality of his tone leaving no room for interpretation.   
She’d been the one to “deal” with him herself. And the samples they’d stolen from Scully’s womb, she dealt with those too. It was surprising just how easy it was to make it appear inert, as though the baby had no natural immunity. One day, they’ll discover her duplicity. But not today.

GEORGETOWN  
OCTOBER 13TH  
7:30 PM

“Scully, it might be time to concede that you’re in labor,” Mulder says as he presses his palms against her lower back.

She grips the edge of the kitchen counter and sways side to side, breathing in deeply as she goes. 

“It’s not labor until there’s a regular pattern of contractions,” she says with breathy pants. 

“Well, you’ve been at it for a few hours now,” he reasons. 

“It’s not labor, it’s back pain, round ligament pain,” she says letting out a long breath and straightening her back.

“That comes and goes every seven to ten minutes,” he adds. “Which sounds like a regular pattern to me.”

“It’s too soon,” she says as she turns and faces him. “We’ve got two weeks to go.”

“Babies can’t read calendars.”

Her cheeks are flushed and her lips are berry red. This is how she usually looks after a long run, save for the broad swoop of round flesh under her shirt. 

“You've been timing them?” she asks.

“Yep, I take my position as labor coach very seriously.”

She nods and chews on the inside of her lip as she looks at nothing in particular. He swears he can hear her thinking in moments like this. Her agile mind clicking through an internal slide show of potential outcomes and possibilities. 

“I think I wanna go lie down for a while,” she says to the air. 

“Okay, I'll go get your things together,” he says as he watches her drift past him. 

“No, it’s too early for that. This might not be the real deal,” she says with a wave of her hand.

He shakes his head and sighs. Her resistance isn’t that surprising, but he really did think that she might be more amenable to going to the hospital considering how thoroughly uncomfortable she’s been. 

Regardless, this is very much the real deal and he knows it, so he gets to work gathering her things and making the necessary calls, first to Mrs. Scully and then Skinner. When he moves to the bedroom, she is on her side, brow knitted, jaw clenched, breathing in deep, rhythmic draws of air. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

“Scully?” he asks as he crouches next to the bed. “Let’s get going, huh?”

“Hmmmm, no,” she says, somewhere between words and a moan. “It’s too soon.”

“It’s gonna be fine,” he says, reaching out and finger combing her hair behind her ear. 

“You don’t know that,” she sighs.

“But I do,” he tells her. “I do know it. I’ve seen her so clearly, Scully. And she’s perfect. C’mon, let’s go meet her.”

She blinks and a tear escapes. The lines on her face recede and smooth out, like tide waters erasing a message on the beach.

“Okay,” she breathes. 

He helps her up, taking her small hands in his and bringing her to her feet.

“Does this count as your birthday present?” she asks him. 

“Best one I’ll ever get,” he says. 

GW HOSPITAL  
9:27 PM

Skinner is standing guard in the hallway. There are agents in the lobby and covering the emergency exits and stairwells. 

No one is coming near her and he is seeing to it personally.

Mulder emerges from the room, an empty plastic pitcher in his hand. 

“How’s it going in there?” Skinner asks. 

“Getting close, I think,” he answers. If ever he needed proof of how helpless he really is, it’s watching her grit through contractions and knowing there’s nothing he can do about it. 

“I can go refill that if you want to stay with her,” Skinner offers.

“No, it’s okay. I needed to talk to you anyway.”

“About?” he asks.

He gestures forward and they begin to walk side by side down the overlit hall. 

“I got a call from Ted Seel earlier today” he says. “Upon his wife’s death, he discovered a secret bank account in Lydia and Noelle’s names.”

“A lot of spouses hide money from one another, Mulder,” he says.

“Monthly payments that came in right up until the time of Lydia Seel’s arrest,” he says, making no effort to reduce the ominous tone in his voice. “Payments from a company called Rausch...sound familiar?”

Skinner looks like he’s been slapped. 

“And your theory is?”

“I think Lydia Seel was being paid for her complicity,” he says as they reach the ice dispenser.

“Complicity in what?”

“We may never know for certain. But I believe it’s all connected. What happened to me, what was done to Scully, the broader conspiracy, all of it.”

“Do you have anything? Anything to go on at all?”

The ice machine pours out crystalized chips into the pitcher. He replaces the lid and digs into his pocket. From it, he draws a small glass vial. It it a lifeless bumble bee sits.

“We’ve got a place to start,” he says as he holds the vial at eye level.

“Fox! You'd better get in here!” Maggie Scully calls.

He stuffs the vial back in his pocket and heads back to the room at a jog. 

“Show time?” he asks hopefully.

“Not quite,” Maggie says, her jaw tight. “She’s trying to leave.”

“What?” he asks, peering into the room. 

Scully is digging through her bag and pulling out the clothes she arrived in. 

“Scully? What’s going on?” he asks, approaching her slowly.

“We have to go home,” she says simply.

“Scully, slow down would ya?” he asks. 

She furrows her brow and looks at him like he's grown an extra head. 

“Are you gonna help me or what?” she asks tersely.

Before he has a chance to answer, her eyes slam shut as she doubles over. A noise boils out of her that is something akin to a sob or a moan. It’s a sound that manages to break his heart, but also leaves him hopeful. Hopeful that it will soon be over, that their daughter will be safe in her mother’s arms.   
She is hanging onto the rail of the bed like a lifeline, her knuckles white, jaw tight. 

“It’s too sooooooooon,” she wails. 

“Dana!” Dr. Hemenway calls as she breezes into the room. “How’re we doing?”

“I gotta get outta here,” she whimpers as she drops her head onto the bed.

He draws up behind her, pressing his palms against her lower back. 

“You’re safe,” he says softly. “The baby is safe. Just stay with me here, Scully.”

“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” it comes out in a litany, prayers rising up and up and up. 

“You can,” he tells her. “I know you can.”

“Dana,” Dr. Hemenway breaks in. “You’re in transition. That’s why you’re feeling so anxious right now. That means it’s almost over. You’re almost there.”

By the time they get her arranged on the bed, Mulder behind her, supporting her, she knows that she cannot go home and that there is no stopping this. She can feel the blinding pressure against her pubic bone and all she can do is let go and let her body do its job. She doesn’t need to be told to push, it’s happening all on its own and it feels so much better when she lets it happen.

Grace comes into the world quietly and it’s Mulder who cries first. Scully collapses against him, limp and heavy, breathing hard and deep. The baby’s four limbs are spread wide and rigid and her face his contorted in a silent wail. 

“It’s her,” he sobs into her ear. “It’s Grace. She’s here.”

She opens her eyes as the baby opens her lungs, a long, wet cry and she feels the relief wash over her.

“I dreamed this,” he says softly.


	21. Epilogue

EPILOGUE  
3 YEARS LATER

He has lived this moment before, he knows. Or seen it perhaps? It seems like so long ago that he could connect the dots like this. But he knows, knows for certain that this is so intensely familiar. 

The warm, salty air, the fine sand dusting his feet and legs, the constellation of fresh freckles across Scully’s nose, it’s like they’ve come home instead of going away.

“Keep digging, Gracie. Maybe you'll find buried treasure,” Mulder encourages with a smile. 

“Like jewels, daddy?” she asks as she drives the blade of her plastic shovel into the wet sand. 

“Who knows?” he says, a teasing grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Better keep digging and see.”

“What do we do when there's no treasure?” Scully murmurs, her voice weary after a long day on the beach.

“Guess we’ll need to figure something out,” he says.

He looks and sees the setting sun creating a cameo silhouette of their daughter, the loose strands of her strawberry blonde hair looking like spun gold. 

“This was a good idea. We needed this,” she sighs from under the brim of her floppy hat. 

“Life’s too short not to do things like this,” he says. “You told me that once.”

“I did?” she asks.

“You did,” he says. 

She looks at him from under the edge of the hat with one winking blue eye and smiles. 

“I'm pretty smart,” she says.

“You are,” he affirms.

Gracie squeals with delight and throws her shovel aside. 

“I found it!” she squeals. “I found treasure!”

“You did?” he asks with mock surprise. 

Scully is eyeing him suspiciously, obviously hip to the fact that Gracie’s “treasure” is no happy accident. 

“This is mine!” she says as she holds up a box wrapped in Tiffany blue paper. “It has ‘G' for Grace, see?”

“I see,” Scully’s tone somewhere between surprised and wary. 

Mulder crawls forward and looks into the hole. 

“This one must be for mommy then,” he says as he dusts the sand off of another box. 

“What did you do?” she asks, eyes wide.

“Life is too short, Scully,” he says as he holds the box out to her. “This life we have, with our daughter,” he pauses as he rests his hand on the gentle swell of her belly, “and our son, this is what I want.”

She takes the box from his outstretched hand, tears welling in her eyes.

“Whatever the future holds, Scully, I want it to be with you, and for them.”

She smiles and nods and he knows that this time, it is no dream.


End file.
